Official figures show cuts in European Union greenhouse gas emissions have almost reached the 20 per cent target set for 2020, stoking a debate on how quickly the bloc should promise deeper cuts.
However, at the member state level not a single country is on track to meet all three targets at the same time but none is lagging behind on all three targets at once either.
The European Environment Agency (EEA), a scientific body set up to inform EU policymakers, said overall EU emissions in 2012 were around 18 per cent lower than in 1990.
The targets, also called the ’20/20/20 targets’, include a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a 20 per cent rise in the share of renewable resources to Europe’s energy needs, and 20 per cent more efficiency in energy use across the EU.
The figures also showed that the 15 EU member states bound by the first Kyoto Protocol commitment period, which ended in December 2012 achieved cuts of 12.2 per cent compared with an eight per cent target.
An agreement is expected at a United Nations summit in Paris in 2015 on a successor to the first global pact on climate change.
In the interim, Poland hosts UN climate talks in Warsaw next month and the EU will prepare its negotiating position at a meeting of environment ministers on Monday in Luxembourg.
Poland, one of the heaviest polluters in Europe and looking to use more lignite coal to secure its energy supplies, is expected to resist setting any new commitments before 2015.
It argues that Europe, as a relatively small emitter, will only make a difference in the context of a global deal and that new energy and environment goals could inflate costs when the economy is still weak.
Hans Bruyninckx, executive director of the EEA, said Europe could not afford to be complacent.
“Member states must ensure that they are not making choices today that become obstacles to a low carbon future,” he said.
Jos Delbeke, director general of the EC’s climate action service, said the EU had to balance environmental concerns with the immediate cost of new technology or energy saving through measures such as better building insulation.
“The real question is economic. We know what we have to do, but we have to mobilize the expertise.
“That’s where we have to calibrate very cautiously,” he said.
Although a conditional promise still stands to deepen EU emissions cuts to 30 per cent by 2020 if the rest of the world also promises to curb emissions, Mr Delbeke said it would be pragmatic to shift the focus to 2030 goals.
“In terms of political energy, it seems better to put the emphasis on 2030,” he said.
The EC is expected to publish proposals on 2030 energy and environment targets around the end of the year, which EU sources have said will include a 40 per cent emissions-cutting goal and a 30 per cent renewable energy target.
The latest data showed that the EU is also on track to meet a separate 2020 target to increase the share of energy from renewable sources to 20 per cent.
Green energy accounted for 13 per cent of consumption by 2011.
The EEA predicts the bloc should achieve its target by 2020.
An overall assessment shows that Belgium, Estonia, Malta and Spain have the least to show.
Six countries, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg and Spain, will have to step up their efforts to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Even with policy measures in the pipeline, these countries are not expected to reach their CO2 reduction target.
On renewable energy sources, six member states, Belgium, France, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, have failed to reach their 2011-2012 targets.
The report said energy efficiency came out as the main area where member states should aim higher, with all but four countries lagging behind in terms of policy initiatives, due to insufficient enforcement and the impact of the economic crisis.
