European Union to Stick to Tough Climate Targets

Leaders vow to maintain targets amid economic and political pressure from some member states to do otherwise.

On Thursday, European heads of state meeting in Brussels decided to stick to previously set climate action targets despite pressure from several member states to loosen the December target, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

Last week, a Polish-led group of eight poorer EU member states threatened to block any resolution that kept the existing targets in place, siting the current economic downturn and market turmoil as the primary obstacle.

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The group, which also includes Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia, picked up support from Italy.

“We don’t think this is the moment to push forward on our own like Don Quixote,” said Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. “We have time.”

Under voting rules for EU governments, the alliance of eight eastern European countries would fall short of the votes needed to block the package without Italy’s support. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he didn’t expect Italy to try to block the legislation, calling Berlusconi a pragmatist who is open to compromise.

“The objectives remain unchanged, the calendar remains the same,” Sarkozy said at a news conference at the end of the two-day summit. “The deadline on climate change is so important that we cannot use the financial and economic crisis as a pretext for dropping it,” he said.

As part of the plan to tighten annual quotas on power plants and factories currently in the EU emissions-trading system by 11 percent on average, the draft legislation would also allocate fewer allowances that make up those quotas for free.

So far, fifteen EU countries are on track to meet Kyoto Protocol goals of 8% carbon emission reduction by 2012. Additional CO2 reductions will be achieved because of the action EU energy ministers took last week of banning the incandescent light bulb, a decision that will go into effect for 500 million people across Europe beginning next year.

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