Consensus reached on EU energy targets
(09 March 2007)

EU leaders have agreed to set binding targets on emissions and renewable energies at a key summit in Brussels.

All 27 leaders at the two-day summit have agreed to back mandatory targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent based on 1990 values, officials have said today.

German chancellor Angela Merkel, who chaired the meeting, also called on EU leaders to back binding targets of up 20 per cent of energy consumption from renewables such as wind, solar and hydro-electric power by 2020.

A key compromise was included in the agreement to ensure the support of smaller countries and those, such as France, which wanted nuclear power to be considered a renewable form of energy provision in terms of carbon emissions.

French president Jacques Chirac yesterday said nuclear power must play a part in the EU's energy mix. He said he could accept binding renewables targets across the EU if it recognised nuclear energy as a renewable source.

Eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia were reportedly opposed to a binding target because of fears that turning away from coal and oil would be too expensive.

But a concession to set different targets for different nations has appeased those fears.

European commissioner Jose Manuel Barroso said the agreement represented "the most ambitious package ever agreed by any institution on energy security and climate change".

Ms Merkel is now set to take the plan to non-European nations in the hope that countries such as the US and Japan will follow suit on climate change.

"We have time still to reduce global warming to below two degrees," she said.

The EU has also set targets to have ten per cent of transport running on biofuels in 13 years' time.