EU Seeks Ambitious Global Warming Goal

European Union environment ministers agreed Tuesday on an ambitious target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 in one of the boldest moves yet to contain global warming — a goal likely to lead to mandatory limits for cars and pollution allowances for airlines.

But the goal — to cut emissions to 20 percent below their 1990 levels — could put a heavy burden on the EU's newest members, and it was unclear how much of the load wealthier nations would shoulder.

The ministers said the target could be pushed up to 30 percent below the 1990 levels if other industrial countries sign on to a global effort.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said many European colleagues had spoken of a moral duty toward future generations during the talks.

"Those who took the floor said that their daughters asked them exactly what they did when they came to such meetings and did they come home with good results," he said. "I think that's a pretty good incentive."

The target, which must be approved at an EU summit next month, is a critical first step in a global warming strategy that must be in place by the time the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The protocol requires 35 industrial nations to cut carbon dioxide and other harmful gases collectively by 5 percent from 1990 levels.

The EU ministers called for U.N.-led talks to finish by 2009 to fix a new climate change goal after Kyoto expires. The next agreement should include the United States — which rejected Kyoto — and other less-developed polluting countries like India, China, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa.

The United States — by far the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed by scientists for global warming — has stayed out of the Kyoto treaty. U.S. officials have said it would harm the economy.

The Bush administration has said it is committed instead to advancing and investing in new technologies to combat global warming. It has set a goal of reducing "greenhouse gas intensity," which measures the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to economic output, by 18 percent by 2012.

A U.N. climate official praised the new European target as "a milestone" in efforts to bring down emissions from industrial countries by 60 percent to 80 percent by mid-century, which scientists say is necessary to curb the Earth's potentially disastrous rising temperatures.

The decision is "quite dramatic," said John Hay, spokesman for the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn, Germany. "But it cannot be a standalone target." If other nations don't follow suit, he said, "it won't have the desired effect."

Gabriel, who led the talks, said all countries agreed they need to act urgently just to hold down temperature increases below 3.7 degrees by the end of the century.

EU officials said they would now work on the details of how their target would be shared and reached.

The ministers gave broad support to a plan that would bring airlines into the trading program in which industries that emit too much carbon dioxide must buy credits from energy-efficient industries that meet their own targets. That would include airlines operating flights to European airports, although the United States has warned that such rules could be illegal and it could have grounds to sue.

EU ministers voiced concern that emissions trading might push up the cost of flights to remote parts of Europe.

Discussions also were advanced on imposing limits on carbon emissions by new cars and encouraging more reliance on wind, solar and possibly nuclear energy rather than on carbon-rich fossil fuels.

"There's an urgent need for improvement in the passenger cars category. Voluntary agreements won't be complied with. We must push for binding standards," Gabriel told the meeting. The ministers will debate the issue in June.

Only when there is a global agreement can EU nations fix a final figure for the amount of carbon dioxide emissions each nation must cut. Those discussions on the EU's internal targets could set a base year other than 1990, Gabriel said.

U.N. figures show Europe is on track to meet its goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto plan by 8 percent. But that figure was accepted by the EU when it only had 15 members, and its expansion to include former East bloc countries with less-developed economies has complicated post-2012 plans.

Even old EU members such as Finland, Spain and Denmark said they were concerned about the burden sharing.

Gabriel said the EU was facing a "historic decision" on climate change. He said Germany's parliament was ready to set the pace — with a cut of up to 40 percent.

"There will be some countries like Germany who will see a steeper reduction in greenhouse gases, and other countries, some of them no doubt in eastern Europe, that will have to achieve a lesser reduction in greenhouse gases because of the need to catch up economically," Gabriel said.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said EU nations had come a long way since March 2006, when leaders gave only vague direction to environmental officials, telling them to look at a cut in global carbon dioxide emissions of between 15 percent and 30 percent.

"Not even the word 'target' was there," he said.