EU maintains pledge for deeper emissions cuts, if others follow

(BRUSSELS) - EU nations decided Wednesday to maintain their pledge to make 30 percent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions if other industrialised nations do the same, diplomats said.

Representatives of the 27 European Union countries, meeting in Brussels decided to stick to the conditional pledge to make the deep cuts by 2020, an offer that was on the table at international climate talks in Copenhagen last month which failed to fix binding targets.

The EU has already agreed unilaterally to cut emissions by 20 percent, compared to 1990 levels, a pledge which puts Europe at the forefront of the fight against climate change.

The letter of agreement called for "comparable offers" from the industrialised world and "adequate contributions" from emerging nations.

The Copenhagen Accord set a broad goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) but did not specify the staging points for achieving this goal or a year by which greenhouse-gas emissions should peak.

At the end of the Copenhagen conference, the United Nations asked industrialised nations to formalise their offers on paper by January 31.

Several European countries, including Italy and coal-dependent Poland, were reluctant at first to maintain the 30 percent reduction offer, a diplomat said.

They argued that one reason for the stalemate in Copenhagen was that other major polluters had made markedly inferior offers to cut emissions, in particular the United States.

They also argued that an obligation to make a 30 percent cut would be extremely painful as their nations attempt to emerge from the global economic crisis.

However the doubters were finally persuaded to accept the common EU position, the source said.

In its letter to the United Nation, the EU said it "remains determined to negotiate a legal and binding agreement," during future international talks, notably at the end of the year in Mexico.

Environmental activists argue that even 30 percent cuts would not be enough to mitigate the effects of global warming.

Some countries, with France to the fore, are calling for the introduction of a 'carbon tax' to penalise imports from countries where there are lax industrial restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions.