Durban – The United Nations' 17th international Convention on Climate Change, COP17, opens today in Durban, South Africa, attended by 17,000 delegates from 195 countries and representatives of environmentalist organizations and associations. Tomasz Chruszczow, representing Poland which currently holds the E.U. presidency, and Artur Runge-Metzger, the E.U.'s chief negotiator, announced that before proceeding independently, the European Union is asking for a global agreement on the reduction of CO2 emissions to be reached before 2015. Negotiations between 190 countries are made difficult by old problems preventing an agreement based on following the post-Kyoto route. A compromise-agreement is unlikely, with on one hand objections posed by the United States (the only industrialized country not to have signed the Protocol) and on the other objections from China and India, the main polluters. Japan, Russia and Canada in fact do not intend to sign a post-Kyoto agreement without a commitment from the United States and China.