EU confirms emissions reduction commitments

摘要

After long negotiations, on 20 January, the EU member states' representatives sealed an agreement that confirms their conditional offer to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020 (from 1990 levels) "if the other industrialised countries commit to comparable efforts". A letter to this effect was sent to the United Nations after being approved by the capitals (written procedure). It expresses the European commitment in the form "20%/30%" to be placed in the "reduction targets" square of the still empty table that makes up Annex I to the Copenhagen Accord.rnThe commitment comes with two footnotes: the first states that, while the commitment concerns the entire EU, not all EU member states are part of Annex I (Malta, Cyprus). The second reiterates the position of the December 2009 European Council and the conditions for moving from a 20% reduction to 30%.