Article written by working for the European Community where he is in charge of enviromental studies.Damian Phillips, alpinist and expert snowboarder

This is the first, and let's hope not last, contribution to Chamonix Guiding.

Why is a green comment needed at all? All of us with a passion for the mountains, at any time of the year and with varying levels of experience, will have already noticed that our Alpine environment is changing. Whilst some people continue to argue about their own locality; "no change here" or "we could do with more sun anyway", the reality for the mountains is that change is happening, and fast.

In September this year the European Environment Agency released another pan EU study which shows that the mountain areas in Europe are under significant pressure and that the cryosphere (the frozen world) is under threat. Those of us who have spent time on Chamonix's glaciers will know this to be true.

To be fair politicians have woken up, but they aren't quite out of bed yet. The EU believes that global warming must not exceed two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which will require global emissions to peak by 2020, and then be at least halved from 1990 levels by 2050. The problem is we don't yet know what the world plans to do after 2012.

This date signifies the end of the Kyoto process on reducing global greenhouse gases. What comes after that is not yet known, but the word 'Poznan' is critical.
The Poznan conference (which is in Poland and also known in jargon world as COP-14), runs between Dec. 1 and 12, and represents an important step in the international negotiations for a post Kyoto global agreement at the end of 2009 in Copenhagen. In short, lots and lots of people (9000) are meeting to arrange the next meeting in 2009, in Copenhagen!

Sounds a bit daft I know, but getting the world to change its stripes is a big deal and everyone needs to feel part of the package. And if we consider that the biggest impact from climate change will be felt by those countries who emit next to nothing compared to the west, then it's also about fairness, or at least sympathy.

But as always the US holds the key. Bush and his merry crowd of disbelievers have tried to derail all climate change talks, Obama, who is currently favouring 'change' has promised to make a difference, yeaha!

Although the whole process is shrouded in language and acronyms designed to confuse all but the seasoned climate change spotters, Poznan is critical to the mountains, as without a detailed implementation agenda for Copenhagen in 2009, there will be no post Kyoto deal. Without a deal we can be sure the future of our mountains will be without ice too!