COPENHAGEN (AlertNet) - Atiq Rahman has been going to international climate conferences for more than 20 years and he's seen a lot of change over that time.

Early meetings were about tallying carbon emissions, he says. Today, the main focus is mankind's responsibility for climate change.

Knowledge about the science of global warming is no longer solely in the hands of rich and powerful nations, he said, thanks in part to the comprehensive and publicly available reports by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

And public awareness of the problem has grown dramatically over the years, creating new pressures on negotiators in Copenhagen who are trying to hammer out a new global pact to fight climate change and adjust to its effects.

"In villages, you don't have to prove anything about climate change," said Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies and one of Bangladesh's leading environmentalists.

"Villagers today say: 'We know something isn't right'. That feeling comes from deep experience. They see the changes every day," he said.

Bangladesh has recently experienced stronger storms and seen salt-water from the rising sea seeping into the cultivated ground by the seaside and killing crops.

But turning that concern into effective policy is an enormous challenge. Experts fear in particular that a new deal on climate will not provide enough financial help to poorer nations - which are also the most vulnerable to climate-related disasters - deal with global warming.

"Every time, we go for a lower step (on the ladder) than what we had hoped. Then someone threatens to eliminate the lower step. So we keep lowering our expectations," Rahman said.

Poor and wealthy nations disagree over how much money industrialised countries should donate to help the developing world reduce carbon emissions and prepare for more droughts, floods and rising seas.

Moreover, the global recession is putting spending on foreign aid under pressure in developed countries, and so talks on climate finance remain deadlocked.

The good news?

"We don't give up. The price of giving up would be horrendous. We'd have to invent all of this all over again," Rahman said, gesturing around the venue of the climate conference, crammed with negotiators, activists and scientists .

He has faith as well in the ingenuity of future generations - those who will face the full of impact of climate change unlike most of the negotiators at Copenhagen this month.

"I think our generation has succeeded in frightening people. We have not given solutions. The next generation is a frightened generation looking for solutions," he said.

"Many of them believe they truly have to do something about this, that the world is worth saving."

He hopes they succeed.

"People ask me, 'What have you got for Plan B?'" he said. "There isn't a Plan B."

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