Ministers give backing to 20% emissions cut

Environment ministers yesterday (20 February) backed ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets but will now have to find a fair way of dividing the overall target between the EU’s 27 member states.

At an Environment Council meeting ahead of the 8-9 March EU summit ministers agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% by 2020, as proposed by the European Commission last month. The target could rise to 30% if other wealthy countries adopted similar binding commitments.

But officials say the division of the target among the member states is likely to be more comp-licated than first-round emission reduction deals for the period up to 2012.

"There are a million different options," one Commission official commented after the Council meeting.

Burden-sharing agreements will have to take into account national concerns raised during the Council meeting. These include the variations in efforts during the first emission reduction period and different levels of gross domestic product.

Although the overall reduction target will be based on 1990 emissions, new member states led by Poland won the right to keep earlier base years ranging from 1985-88.

National targets could also, for the first time, include sector-specific targets, with emission reductions set for indu-stries as well as countries.

Reductions in carbon dioxide emissions for the transport sector were set in motion last Thursday (15 February) when energy ministers agreed that biofuels should account for at least 10% of EU diesel and petrol consumption by 2020.

But governments gave themselves room to back away from this target by saying it would only be binding "subject to prod-uction being sustainable, second-generation bio-fuels becoming commerc-ially available and the fuel quality directive being amended accordingly".

Commission calls for a binding target for renew-able energy went unheed-ed, with ministers opting instead for an indicative 20% renewables share by 2020.

Environment ministers yesterday (20 February) backed ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets but will now have to find a fair way of dividing the overall target between the EU’s 27 member states.

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