EU Climate Action and Renewable Energy Package

The European Commission has today put forward a package of proposals that will deliver on the European Union's commitments to fight climate change and promote renewable energy up to 2020 and beyond. The EU has committed to reducing its overall emissions to at least 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, and is ready to scale up this reduction to as much as 30% under a new global climate change agreement if other developed countries make comparable efforts. It has also set itself the target of increasing the share of renewables in energy use to 20% by 2020. For the UK, the Commission's proposals include a reduction of 16 per cent in UK greenhouse gas emissions from sectors not covered by the EU ETS by 2020 from 2005 levels, for 15 per cent of the energy consumed in the UK to come from renewable sources by 2020, and for 10 per cent of road transport fuels to come from renewable sources, subject to them being produced in a sustainable way.