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By Pete Harrison and Huw Jones
STRASBOURG, France, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The European Union
finalised plans for battling global warming on Wednesday,
seeking to lead the way towards a broad alliance including other
big polluters like China and the United States.
The European Parliament approved cutting carbon dioxide
emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, heeding
warnings of severe weather, famine and drought as the atmosphere
heats up.
The deal takes on a greater importance coming just before
Barack Obama assumes the U.S. presidency, amid hopes in Europe
he will cooperate more on tackling climate change than incumbent
George W. Bush.
"Everybody knows what Mr Obama has set as priorities --
energy security and climate change," European Environment
Commissioner Stavros Dimas said in the run up to the vote.
"Already some voices around the world are claiming they will
copy our package and this is very encouraging," he added.
The advancing economic crisis had at times threatened to
derail negotiations. A myriad of concessions to water down the
costs for industry helped pin down a deal, although this fuelled
criticism from environmental groups.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi had fought successfully for industries like German
steel, chemicals and cement and Italian glass and ceramics, as
well as their powerful auto sectors.
Lawmakers approved measures on Wednesday to cut CO2
emissions from new cars by 18 percent by 2015, after intense
lobbying by the industry won it a three year reprieve.
Auto industry group ACEA repeated calls for billions of
euros in EU support to help it meet the targets.
STAND-BY
The biggest threat to a deal was the opposition of nine
former communist nations, which feared the deal would ramp up
costs for their highly polluting coal-fired power sectors.
To buy their support, the EU has offered a partial exemption
and agreed to give them 12 percent of revenues from the EU's
flagship emissions trading scheme (ETS), which makes industry
buy permits to pollute.
Environmentalists vented their anger over the dilution of
the EU's ambition, most of them criticising the high levels of
carbon offsets allowed and pointing to the rules on cars as the
most heavily watered down.
"People will look back at 2008 and ask...knowing what they
knew then, why did they not do more to save all of us from the
unbearable impacts from a warming planet?" said British Green
group politician Caroline Lucas.
The European Commission, which originated the climate laws
in January, demonstrated its appetite for further action by
adopting rules on eco-friendly design on Wednesday, which would
cap the energy consumption of televisions on standby mode.
"The focus of the next two years should now be on energy
efficiency and overhauling the electricity grid system," said
Luxembourg's Claude Turmes who led rules to boost green energy
through parliament.
(Reporting by Huw Jones, writing by Pete Harrison; editing by
Sue Thomas and Anthony Barker)
