The global talks on climate change are on the edge. The current EU president, utterly dependent on coal and a cheerleader for shale gas, must raise its game

With the next major round of global warming talks now less than 10 weeks away, the European Union's preparations are being led by Poland, a nation which is dependent for 95% of its electricity on dirty coal and, I was told today, has 90 shale gas applications under consideration.

So can Poland, current holders of the rotating EU presidency, truly represent the EU's ambition to tackle climate change, when it has been the principle obstacle to greater ambition within the bloc?

Who better to answer this that the Polish minister for climate change, Joanna Mackowiak Pandera, and her senior advisor, Tomasz Chruszczow, whom I met today in London.

"Durban is the last call to maintain the global instrument on climate policy," Mackowiak Pandera began, before going on to show that at the very least she is across her brief, discussing details of the Kyoto protocol, the Green Fund, technology transfer, monitoring, recording and verification (MRV).

But how can Poland be a serious negotiator for the EU with China, India, the US and others, when it has blocked higher carbon cuts in Brussels, I asked? Here, Chruszczow stepped in: "You must not make the mistake of confusing the aims of the EU [under our presidency] and our domestic arrangements on how to meet our targets."

That would indeed be a scary mistake, given Mackowiak Pandera;'s assessment of the role of coal and gas in Polish energy policy. "For sure coal is harmful but we see it as a strategic source of energy. We have a source of coal for 300 years," she said. "Poland is 95% dependent on coal. We have to search for new technologies, clean coal technology and carbon capture and storage."

If there seems any chance that Poland is going to ease up on its coal burning, it looks like shale gas would take its place. "There is a great expectation that shale gas will help us reach our climate goals," Mackowiak Pandera said, notwithstanding the debate on whether shale really is a much lower carbon fuel than coal. She then told me something I had not heard before: "There are 90 permit requests for shale gas in Poland. The initial research is very promising for us."

To put that in context, the UK has one shale gas site being explored, which so far has produce nothing bar perhaps a small earthquake. France has banned shale gas exploration.

Regarding the impact of shale gas drilling, she said, Poland had very strict environmental impact assessment requirements, before adding that "every energy extraction method is damaging", such as "where to site wind farms, for example, without damaging fauna". That's a very odd comparison, in my view.

Nonetheless, Mackowiak Pandera and Chruszczow were very clear-eyed on what is required in Durban to prevent the UN negotiations drifting into meaninglessness: avoiding the death of the only existing legal agreement, the Kyoto protocol, making real the promises of the last summit in Cancun and making new progress in delivering climate cash to poorer nations and on the role of private investment.

But can coal-dependent Poland be a convincing negotiator for the EU, the political bloc which has led the world in its action on cutting greenhouse gas emissions? Mackowiak Pandera insists Poland is "credible" in this regard.

Perhaps a more fundamental question is does it matter who holds the EU presidency? At the Copenhagen summit, amid 120 world leaders, it was Merkel, Sarkozy and Brown who sat by Obama and tried to wrangle a deal, not the then-EU presidents Sweden. And can you remember who led the EU in Cancun in 2010 (clue: Tintin.)

We will be in a better position to answer these questions after 10 October, when the EU's environment ministers meet to agree their negotiating position for Durban. A strong, ambitious platform would show the EU, responsible for just 13% of global emissions, can in fact leverage its leadership to move the US and China. That pair of carbon colossuses are, says Chruszczow, "hiding behind each others' backs and saying 'no, you have to go first'."

A weak platform would not only signal gloom for the EU's ability to function, but also for the entire climate change negotiations.