EU Battles Global Warming

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) – European Union leaders drafted an agreement Friday promising to take the lead in the fight against global warming by setting binding targets to cut greenhouse gases and ensure a fifth of the bloc’s energy comes from green power such as wind turbines and solar panels.The draft, expected to be endorsed by the leaders by the end of Friday’s summit, also noted the role nuclear power could play in tackling greenhouse gas emissions, an inclusion not welcomed by all leaders.“This text really gives European Union policies a new quality and will establish us as a world pioneer,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters as she arrived to lead the talks.European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called the measures “the most ambitious package ever agreed by any institution on energy security and climate change.”Ms. Merkel was leading negotiations on details of the package which includes a commitment to slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. By the same date the EU wants to ensure 20 percent of its power comes from renewable energy and 10 percent of its cars and trucks run on biolfuels made from plants.European leaders hope their commitment to tackling climate change will encourage other leading polluters like America and China to agree on deep emissions cuts. Merkel plans to present those plans to a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations that she will host in June.“Europe only produces 15 percent of global CO2,” Ms. Merkel said late Thursday. “The real climate problem will not be solved by Europe alone.”The final draft represents a compromise between nations that had demanded mandatory targets on clean energy and eastern European nations led by Poland and Slovakia who had argued that they do not have the money to meet such high targets for developing costly alternatives and preferred to stay with cheaper, but more polluting options such as coal and oil.While setting an overall 20 percent target for renewable energy, the draft says individual targets will be allowed for each of the 27 EU members.“A differentiated approach to the contributions of the member states is needed, reflecting fairness (and) taking into account national circumstances,” the draft says. It tasked the EU’s executive Commission to establish national targets for each country.It also mentions solidarity between EU nations in times of energy supply crises from suppliers such as Russia, as demanded by the Poles.Many of the former Communist nations that joined the EU in 2004 lag behind their Western neighbors in developing clean fuel. Although their economies are growing fast, most are still struggling to catch up with the West and say they need more time to meet the 20 percent target.Cooler, landlocked countries like Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic also argue that they are handicapped in developing wind, solar and water-based power sources, which are now in widespread gained wider use recently in countries such as Denmark and Spain.The draft also contains a reference to the role of nuclear power, a demand of the French, Czechs, Slovaks and others who argued it could play a crucial part in helping Europe move away from carbon fuels.It said each EU nation should decide whether to use nuclear power but took note of a report from the Commission saying that nuclear energy could contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and help alleviate worries about security of energy supply. They also stressed the need to improve nuclear safety.Austria, Ireland and Denmark did not want the EU to sanction nuclear power, and the German government is split over whether to develop atomic energy. “Our Austrian attitude toward sustainable energy definitely does not include nuclear energy,” Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik told reporters.The leaders also agreed that EU nations should forge a common approach in dealing with its main foreign supplies of energy. The EU hopes to intensify imports from former Soviet nations like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and producers in Africa to reduce reliance on oil and gas supplies from Russia. They also want to diversify energy supply routes, a response to recent problems which have seen Russia turning off the taps on pipelines carrying oil and gas westward.EU leaders also asked regulators to further develop a plan on opening up the EU’s internal energy market and overcome problems such overcharging and under-investment which have been blamed for two major blackouts in the past year. However they stopped short of endorsing a plan to split up national energy monopolies.The EU’s environmental agenda is to be pursued in parallel with commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. treaty on climate change. The major EU economies have committed to cut greenhouse gases by 8 percent of 1990 levels by 2012, and want America to sign the treaty. America argues, however, that Kyoto would hurt its economy and says it should also apply to surging Asian economies like China and India.____Associated Press Writers Jan Sliva, Aoife White and Raf Casert contributed to this report.

EU Battles Global Warming

EU Battles Global Warming

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