Europeans back level attack on climate change

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union citizens want the EU to take more action to fight climate change, including establishing minimum levels of energy consumption to come from renewable fuels, a survey released on Monday showed.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said a Eurobarometer poll showed half of EU citizens were very concerned about global warming, with people in Spain, Cyprus, Malta and Greece especially worried.

More than eight out of 10 Europeans say they are aware that the way energy is produced and consumed in their countries is hurting the climate.

Sixty-two percent of EU citizens want energy-related issues to be addressed at the EU level, the survey said, while 61 percent think the share of nuclear energy should be reduced because of the dangers of waste and possible accidents.

Eighty-three percent of citizens support establishing targets for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

The Commission used those results to prod EU leaders to sign up to a binding target for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to supply 20 percent of energy consumption by 2020.

"We think it's absolutely essential to have mandatory targets for renewable energy," said Ferran Tarradellas Espuny, spokesman for EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

EU environment, energy and foreign ministers have all failed to agree on whether to make such targets binding. Top leaders from the 27-nation bloc will discuss the matter at a summit starting Thursday.

As energy issues hit the top of the bloc's political agenda, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has created a special group of high-powered advisors to counsel him on energy issues, his spokesman said on Monday.

The members include Claude Mandil, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Carlo Rubbia, a 1984 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics, Sir Nicholas Stern, an advisor to Britain on the economics of climate change, and Peter Sutherland, chairman of BP Plc.