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7 hours ago by Monika Scislowska Activists dressed as corporate lobbyists hold bags of coal and put up blackened hands as they demonstrate outside an EU summit in Brussels, on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014. Demonstrators called for EU leaders to resist pressure by the fossil fuel industry and agree an EU 2030 climate and energy package. EU leaders will gather Thursday for a two-day summit in which they will discuss energy and climate change. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

European Union leaders meeting in Brussels to set their new greenhouse gas emissions plan are facing staunch opposition from coal-reliant Poland and other East European countries who say their economies would suffer from the new target.

Poland says it's ready to veto the plan that would oblige the bloc's 28 states to jointly cut their greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below the 1990 levels by the year 2030. The EU plan would also require climate-friendly, renewable energy to provide 27 percent of the bloc's needs and demand that energy efficiency increase by a third in the next 16 years.

Poland says that pace is too fast for Eastern European countries that are trying to grow their economies as they restructure old, energy-dependent industries.

Almost 90 percent of Poland's electricity comes from coal. The nation intends to continue that way for decades because mining creates 100,000 direct jobs and many thousands more in related sectors. Warsaw argues that green energy, large wind farms and solar panels still create energy that is too expensive.

But a failure to set the new emissions goal at the two-day European summit starting Thursday would delay the groundwork for a crucial global climate deal that is expected to be signed in Paris next year. It would also undermine the EU's position as the leader in the global push to reduce the carbon emissions that scientists say are driving climate change.

"The objective is to agree ... (on) the world's most ambitious, yet cost-effective and fair climate and energy policy framework for the next decade," EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy said.

Last month Poland and five other countries that rely on fossil fuels said while they agree with the need to cut emissions, they will not be forced into any legally binding deals that overlook the realities of their economies.

The emission reduction targets "must be set realistically," said a statement signed by Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary.

Those nations say the proposed EU targets would raise their energy prices and slow down their developing industries at a time when they are still recovering from the global economic crisis.

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Coal-rich Poland ready to block EU climate deal