Section submenu:

Current Releases

News

GCN in Copenhagen: Brown urges EU to go to 30 per cent

08 December 2009

The European Union should not equivocate over its willingness to set a 30 per cent reduction target for 2020, Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister has said ahead of a critical meeting of EU heads of state that overlaps with the climate summit in Copenhagen.

Mr Brown said that the EU should not be saying 'I may do this, I might do that, possibly I'll do this' but should instead be going to its higher, conditional target for reducing emissions. 'I want to create a situation in which the European Union is persuaded to go to 30 percent', said the UK Prime Minister.

Hitherto, the EU, which has already agreed a target of 20 per cent emissions reductions by 2020 relative to 1990 levels, has said that it will increase this target to 30 per cent if other industrialised countries show a similar level of ambition. It is not clear what precise actions by other countries would be sufficient to spur the EU to go to its conditional target. Mr Brown is the first European leader to openly urge the EU to do this anyway.

Contact - a.pendleton@ippr.org