The following fact box compares national goals for fighting climate change, from the United States to India, after Australia's top climate adviser proposed 2020 greenhouse gas emissions targets on Friday.
 
The data compares the widely varying plans with a 1990 base year in the UN's Climate Convention and its Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels.

The 37 nations bound by Kyoto have agreed to consider cuts of between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, a range indicated by the UN Climate Panel as needed to avoid the worst of droughts, floods, heat waves and rising seas.