A makeshift village has been put up on a busy roundabout in Warsaw, complete with so-called ‘climate refugees’ from the islands of southern Pacific, which are the most vulnerable to the adverse impact of climate change.

Passers-by could see how the village is swept away by Prime Minister Donald Tusk wielding a powerful fire hose. The event, coinciding with the climate change conference in Copenhagen, was masterminded by Greenpeace Poland, which is demanding more energetic efforts from the Polish government to save the climate.

“The European Union must declare a binding 30 percent greenhouse gas emission reduction target by the year 2020 to be able to increase this target to 40 percent when a global climate deal is signed,” says Magdalena Zowsik, coordinator of the Climate and Energy campaign of Greenpeace Poland. “Poland must back this demand if it does not want to be labeled a brakes man of Europe”, she commented.

Poland insists that, before the 30 percent reduction target is adopted, the European Commission should determine its economic, social and environmental consequences. (kk/mmj)