Crisis making EU environment accord harder-Sweden

Fri May 15, 2009 2:07pm BST

* Sweden to take over EU presidency

* Says financial crisis harming environment efforts

* Wants Obama to do more on U.S. emissions cuts



STOCKHOLM, May 15 (Reuters) - The financial crisis has made it harder for the EU to agree on an internal target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions as part of a global climate change deal, Sweden's environment minister said on Friday.

The Nordic country will take the helm of the European Union in the run-up to December's international climate conference in Copenhagen, which aims to unite the world behind drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to prevent environmental catastrophe.

"There is a growing reluctance," Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren told Reuters on the sidelines of a news conference. "There is a risk that the EU will have problems (coming to an agreement)."

The EU targets emission cuts of 20 to 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Sweden and some other member states want it to commit to the higher figure in any treaty to replace the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol.

Carlgren said the main difficulty was money, who should pay for climate change measures and how much, and the economic downturn had made this issue more acute.

"Some of the EU member states are really experiencing a crisis ... and it is understandable that this influences the will to take action," he said.

The UN Climate Panel says industrialised nations need to cut emissions by between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels to avoid more severe droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels, predicted as a result of global warming.

The environment is top of the agenda when Sweden takes over the EU presidency on July 1. Carlgren said much of the country's effort would go towards shaping agreement for the Copenhagen summit.

Key countries to get on board will be the United States and China, the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters.

If China were to formalise its internal climate goals in an international treaty, that would be a "step in the right direction", Carlgren said.

However, he said it remained unclear whether these targets were sufficient in an international context and that China needed to be transparent about their implementation.

Carlgren said the United States had a "completely different attitude" to climate change under President Barack Obama. His predecessor, George W. Bush, opposed Kyoto. But the EU does not see Obama's aim of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 as ambitious enough.

"I expect something better than has been presented so far by the Americans," Carlgren said. (Editing by Janet Lawrence)



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