The EU has set a target of cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) by 20% from 1990 levels over the next decade. It promised ahead of climate talks in Copenhagen in December that it would deepen those cuts to 30% if other countries did likewise.
The United Nations has fixed a 31 January deadline for countries to commit to emissions cuts, and the EU sees no sign that major economies will set comparable targets that soon.
"The final evaluation is that it probably cannot be done," Spanish Secretary of State for Climate Change Teresa Ribera told journalists after a meeting of EU environment ministers in Seville, Spain. The decision had been widely expected.
The EU, which accounts for about 14% of the world's CO2 emissions, is keen to lead climate talks despite its marginalisation at last year's meeting in Copenhagen.
Environmentalists had pushed it to adopt a more aggressive target in order to show the way.
It has not ruled out adopting a 30% cut at a later stage if it can gain concessions from other countries.
The nominee for European climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, told a European Parliament hearing on Friday that she hoped the EU's conditions for moving to 30% would be met before a meeting set for Mexico later this year (EurActiv 18/01/10).
Prior to the Copenhagen talks, the United Nations had called for wealthy countries to cut emissions by 25-40% by 2020 in order to keep the average rise in global temperatures to within two degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels.
(EurActiv with Reuters.)
