BY REUTERS
EU on track to meet Kyoto CO2 target - official
EU: September 20, 2000
BRUSSELS - The European Union is on target to meet its
international commitment to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide
and other gases that are thought to cause climate change, an EU
official said yesterday.
A senior official at the EU's executive Commission
told a news briefing that statistics due to be published in the
coming weeks would show emissions of so-called greenhouse gases
had stabilised at 1990 levels.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, a United Nations treaty
agreed in Japan in December 1997, the EU committed to reducing
its greenhouse gases by eight percent of 1990 levels by
2008-2012.
"Our calculations show that if we do what we promise
to do in the fields of renewables, taxation, etc, in the (EU)
member states and at Community level we are quite confident we
will reach those levels," the official, from the Commission's
environment department, said.
The comments were made during a briefing to tell journalists that
government negotiators at a conference in Lyon last week had made
"good progress" on preparing the ground for a meeting
of the world's environment ministers in The Hague in November.
The meeting, seen by many as a "make-or-break" for the
Kyoto Protocol which has yet to be ratified by most of its
signatories, will finalise the rules on how countries will meet
their greenhouse gas targets.
Developed countries undertook to reduce emissions by
an average of 5.2 percent of 1990 levels by 2008-2012 in an
effort to combat the greenhouse effect which is thought to cause
global warming.
The main sticking point left to hammer out at The Hague is how
the treaty's "flexible mechanisms" such as emissions
trading will work and whether there should be a limit to the
extent these can be used to account for a country's Kyoto target.
BY REUTERS BRUXELLES
=================================================
Vincenzo FERRARA
ENEA - Global and Mediterranean Environment Division
ITALY's Focal Point of the IPCC
Tel.: +3906.3048.3608; +3932.9831.3189
Fax: +3906.3048.6695
E-mail: ferrara@mail.casaccia.enea.it
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