Will EU live up to its green ambition?: Paul Taylor

-- Paul Taylor is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own --

By Paul Taylor

PARIS (Reuters) - European Union leaders this week face a crucial credibility test of their ambition to lead the world in fighting climate change, just as President-elect Barack Obama is making it a top priority for the United States.

Will the EU give real teeth to its pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020, draw 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources and cut energy consumption by 20 percent over the same period, or will it fall short?

The omens for the December 11-12 summit are not too encouraging.

Europe's climate goals were agreed in March 2007 in sunnier economic days. The financial crisis and looming recession have fueled pressure from heavy industry and some governments to go easy on implementation measures.

The EU will almost certainly reach a deal by the early hours of Saturday, which French President Nicolas Sarkozy will no doubt declare a triumph for his presidency of the bloc.

Yet the draft legislation has already been watered down to assuage industrial lobbies led by Germany, and more concessions will have to be made to placate coal-dependent Poland.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso says he is confident the essentials of the EU executive's proposal to turn Europe's climate objectives into reality will remain intact.

But green campaigners say the result will be a toothless package that falls far short of the EU's leadership boast.

"The glass is three-quarters empty. The emperor is standing there with no clothes," says Stephan Singer, head of the European Climate Change and Energy Unit at pressure group WWF.

FEAR OF COSTS

He and other environmentalists argue that the EU should be aiming to cut emissions by 30 percent in the light of impending "regime change" in the White House, Australia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, and signs of progress by China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Singer says the 27-nation EU will probably achieve its so-called 20-20-20 objectives, since European emissions are already almost 9 percent down on the 1990 starting point, leaving just 11 percent to cut in the next decade.

Moreover, EU states can make half those reductions far from home through a Clean Development Mechanism, which gives them carbon credits for funding emissions cuts in developing nations.

The emerging EU deal may not be tough enough to galvanize other nations into an agreement at U.N. climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009 to save the planet from potentially catastrophic ecological consequences of global warming.