The European Union cut its emissions of the gases which cause global warming by 1.2 per cent in 2007, putting it on track to meet the targets set by the Kyoto Protocol on fighting climate change, dpa quoted the bloc's environment agency as saying today. But questions remain over its ability to bring in the far more ambitious cuts it has set itself for 2020, after the Copenhagen-based European Environment Agency (EEA) issued figures showing that much of the decrease in domestic emissions was caused by warm weather, while transport emissions continued to soar. Households and the transport sector together account for almost a quarter of the EU's total greenhouse gases. According to the EEA, emissions of the gases which cause global warming in the EU's 27 member states fell in 2007 despite economic growth of 2.9 per cent. "We have managed to decouple economic growth from greenhouse-gas emissions," EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said. Emissions in the 15 EU states which belonged to the bloc when it signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, and which produce 80 per cent of all EU greenhouse gases, fell by 1.6 per cent over the same period. That means they have already cut emissions to 5 per cent below the level of their Kyoto "base year" (usually, but not always, 1990) - well on the way to the 8-per-cent reduction the document demands as an average over the period from 2008 to 2012. The EU "will achieve the Kyoto target comfortably," Dimas said. But much of the overall fall came thanks to the bloc's three largest economies, Germany, France and Britain, who between them accounted for two-thirds of the total cuts. While the "big three" have already hit their Kyoto targets, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain look extremely unlikely to reach theirs, and could well face EU penalties. Under Kyoto, Spain is allowed to boost its emissions by up to 15 per cent compared with its base year, but has already raised them by a staggering 52.6 per cent. Italy, which is ordered under Kyoto to cut emissions by 6.5 per cent, has so far increased them by 6.9 per cent. And while Denmark, the EU's biggest producer of clean wind power, has cut emissions to 3.9 per cent below base-year levels, Kyoto says it should cut them by 21 per cent. That revelation is doubly embarrassing, as Copenhagen is not only home to the EEA, but is also set to host a major world conference in December which should approve a successor to Kyoto. Friday's report also left open the crucial question of whether the EU will be able to cut emissions to at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, as it agreed to do in March 2007. According to the European Commission, the EU's executive, the main reason that household emissions fell in 2007 was that the winter was warm, not because of a major change in EU citizens' habits. That raises the question of how effective the EU's own policies have been at cutting domestic emissions, although Dimas stressed that the 2007 decline followed a broader trend of falling emissions. More worryingly still, EEA figures showed that road-transport emissions actually rose 0.6 per cent in 2007, despite all the EU's efforts to reduce them - the 16th annual rise in the last 17 years. Dimas acknowledged that concern, saying that the next commission must bring in new laws to make transport more climate-friendly. That should include moves to shift freight cargoes from trucks onto railways, and to encourage more Europeans to use public transport, he said. But he hailed as a success a recent EU law setting new, strict standards for emissions from passenger cars, pointing out that European auto makers are already advertising their products to highlight their low-carbon approach. Environmental groups had labelled the legislation as weak, toothless and overdue.
