EU sets emissions targets to fight climate change

EU sets emissions targets to fight climate change

4 hours ago

BRUSSELS (AFP) — The European Commission set targets Wednesday for EU member states to slash greenhouse gases, seeking to calm fears about the burden of fighting climate change and warning that the cost of dithering would be much higher.

Laying out a sweeping strategy to fight climate change, the commission called on EU members to ratchet up their use of renewable energy and biofuels while also unveiling plans to make industry pay for the right to pollute.

"Responding to the challenge of climate change is the ultimate political test for our generation," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.

"Our package not only responds to this challenge, but holds the right answer to the challenge of energy security and is an opportunity that should create thousands of new businesses and millions of jobs," he added.

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EU renewable energy targets announced

By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
Last Updated: 4:01pm GMT 23/01/2008

A family of four will pay £465 more each year for energy by 2020, on top of any hike caused by oil prices, as a result of proposals announced by the EU.

Some of that will come from a 10-15 per cent increase in electricity prices caused by the legally-binding obligation on each of EU member states to generate more electricity from wind, wave and solar energy.

Some will come from higher prices caused by the rising price of goods as companies, such as supermarkets, have to purchase credits to cover their annual emissions.

And some will come from higher petrol and diesel prices, the result of the obligation for 10 per cent of all road fuels to come from plant-based biofuels by 2020.

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IPCC chief disappointed by EU climate change plan

January 23, 2008: 11:52 AM EST

BRUSSELS, Jan. 23, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- The new EU strategy for slashing greenhouse emissions is 'not up to expectations,' according to the head of the UN's Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change.

The package announced by European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso set targets on EU nations to cut greenhouse gases and increase Europe's use of renewable energy and biofuels.

'One would say that maybe what has come out is not up to expectations,' the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, told Agence France-Presse on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Pachauri, who won last year's Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore, said he was sure that the targets would be 'revisited over a period of time.'

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