EU wants developing nations to do more on climate

By Gerard Wynn

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The European Union wants developing countries to make more effort to cut their ballooning greenhouse gas emissions rather than rely on carbon offset schemes, a European Commission official said on Tuesday.

The Kyoto Protocol on global warming allows rich countries to meet binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions by funding cuts in developing nations.

The EU has been the biggest buyer of offsets so far but now wants developing nations to take more responsibility for cutting their contribution to global warming, potentially pouring cold water on an emerging, multi-billion dollar carbon market.

The Europeans have tabled the proposals ahead of a climate meeting later this month in Bangkok, the first in a two-year process launched in Bali in December to agree a new global climate change deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.

"If developing countries continue to be only offset suppliers we simply will not reach (desired) emissions levels," the Commission's Head of Emissions Trading, Yvon Slingenberg, told a carbon market conference in Copenhagen.

"We need a re-think. (Emissions cuts) would become more the contributions of developing nations," she told reporters. "(We want) a gradual shift from offsetting to cap and trade."

Cap and trade schemes set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and allow participating countries and companies to trade emissions permits within that cap.

Developing countries have consistently rejected such limits, saying that cutting poverty comes first and that countries which are already well off should pay for the climate fight.