EU agency: Greenhouse gases must be cut 40%

The European Union needs to reduce greenhouse gases by 40% by 2030 to reach its long-term goal of curbing global warming, the European Environment Agency said today.

To reach that level, the EU must shift its energy production to non-carbon fuels and trade emissions rights with non-European countries, the agency said.

The report came one week after the agency stated that greenhouse gas emissions in the EU rose 1.3% in 2003, in a setback to efforts to fight global warming.

EU leaders have endorsed a commitment to ensure that global temperatures don’t rise more than 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

To reach that goal the EU would have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030, from 1990 levels, the EEA said.

The Copenhagen-based agency, whose members include the 25 EU countries and six other European nations, said that reduction efforts within the EU most likely would be able lower emissions by only 16 to 25% in 2030. The bulk of that reduction would stem from the shifting to low or non-carbon fuels in the power generation sector, the agency said.

The remaining emission cuts would then have to be accomplished through an international emissions trading scheme.

“As it is now, the trading of greenhouse gas emission allowances is still not up and running smoothly on a market basis, but in the report we assume that it will be by 2030,” said Andre Jol, one of the authors of the report.

EEA Executive Director Jacqueline McGlade said climate change was at the top of the international agenda, and many people are aware of the Kyoto Protocol, which commits industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2012.

“But the Protocol is only a first step and the discussions have started as to what we do after 2012 to ensure that we do not exceed the 2-degree (Celcius) limit,” she said.