The EU on Friday submitted its formal promise on how much it plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions to the UN ahead of climate change talks starting in November and called on the US and China to follow its lead.
The EU is the first major economy to agree to its position before the talks in Paris this year aimed at establishing a new worldwide deal on global warming.
“We expect China, the United States and the other G20 countries in particular to follow the European Union and submit their contributions by the end of March,” EU Commissioner for Energy and Climate Action Miguel Arias Canete told reporters after a meeting of EU environment ministers in Brussels.
French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy Segolene Royal said Europe was taking up its responsibilities as host of this year’s Paris climate conference, which begins on Nov. 30.
“A very important step was taken today,” she said. “This is a decisive, historic stage.”
On Thursday, Royal had said agreement had to be reached by March 20 at the latest.
The EU’s official contribution would be a target of an at least 40 percent cut in emissions by 2030, compared to levels emitted in 1990.
The target was set at a summit in October last year, but ministers still had to agree on the details of the formal submission to the UN.
The target has to be achieved domestically rather than through offsets that allow member states to buy into carbon-cutting schemes outside Europe.
EU diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the 40 percent target would have to be shared among member states and debate over how to achieve that is only likely to begin after the Paris talks.
One option is to share the effort based on a member state’s GDP per capita.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the