Climate priorities
January 16, 2010
"We definitely think we should maintain the 30 percent offer," British Energy and Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband told reporters in Sevilla, Spain, where he took part in the informal meeting of EU environment ministers.
"It has always been a conditional offer but it is a very important signal that it is maintained," he said.
Ahead of the climate talks in Denmark, the 27-member bloc had agreed to cut CO2 emissions by 20 percent over the next decade from 1990 levels, and to deepen those cuts to 30 percent if other nations followed suit.
Belgian Climate Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said raising the EU's target to 30 percent give European firms a "first mover advantage" and it could inspire heavy polluters like China, India and the United States to set more ambitious goals.
"By staying with our 20 percent target we might take the risk of losing the opportunity for major industrial change," he said.
But other EU countries such as Italy have opposed raising emission cut goals out of fears their business sector will suffer competitive disadvantages.
Looking ahead to Bonn, Mexico
While media outlets across the globe widely dubbed the Copenhagen convention a failure, the world could take a stab at reaching a binding climate change treaty at the next UN climate conferences in Bonn in mid-2010 and in Mexico at the end of the year.
The greenhouse gas emission cuts written into the 1997 Kyoto Protocol are set to expire in 2012, and Europe hopes to be influential in the search for a successor.
German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said European countries needed to discuss what they did not do to make Copenhagen a success.
"We want to be a strategic driving force again," he said.
acb/dpa/AFP
Editor: Toma Tasovac