(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission unveils Wednesday its drive to fight global warming, with plans to slash industrial pollution, tighten emissions trading and impose renewable energy targets.

The measures are aimed at translating into concrete action the EU's goal of cutting emissions of the gases that cause climate change by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.

To help achieve that, the bloc wants to increase the use of renewable energies like wind and solar power to 20 percent of all energy forms by then.

According to draft documents and officials, the Commission will toughen up the EU's emissions trading scheme, which allows energy intensive industries to buy and sell permits to pump out carbon dioxide.

At the moment the nearly 12,000 plants concerned get the quotas free from their local EU government, but under the new legislation they will have to pay, which has caused a stir among European businesses.

Industrial emissions are to be capped at 21 percent below levels in 2005 -- when the latest data on carbon dioxide emissions is available -- and will soon include new sectors like aviation, petrochemicals, ammonia and aluminium.

Road transport and shipping, as well as the agriculture and forestry sectors, will not be included.

The EU's executive body will also decide how to share the burden for cutting greenhouse gases among the 27 member nations, one of the more controverial parts of the package.

The targets are still being debated in Brussels, but were expected to be calculated based on a country's gross domestic product (GDP) which richer nations fear will penalise them.

France wants the calculation to be based on the level of pollution currently produced per inhabitant. Nordic countries, already good eco students, also fear they will be penalised, rather than rewarded for their efforts.

Similar targets will be set for the use of renewable energy forms in each country's energy mix, to achieve the 20 percent average cut, and legislation on this will set out criteria to ensure that biofuels are produced in a sustainable way.

Revisions will also be made to existing European legislation governing the way that state aid is granted for environmental purposes.

The Commission, the EU's executive body, hopes to have its plans approved by EU member nations and the European Parliament by the end of the year.

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