New European targets for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases are a strong signal to other countries to reduce their carbon output, the UN environment chief said today.
The European Commission's plan to cut emissions unilaterally by 20 per cent by 2020, announced this week, is "quite far-reaching," Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme, said at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
"I think the signal value of the European decision cannot be underestimated for other parts of the world," Mr Steiner said.
Some environment groups - including the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - have criticised the European proposals for not going far enough, however.
"If you take the IPCC recommendation seriously then 30 per cent would have been a more credible target," Mr Steiner said. "But a credible target versus a politically feasible target is always in a sense the tension that is there.
"I think given the degree to which other parts of the world are willing to make firm commitments, this is a significant commitment. And it doesn't preclude the 30 per cent," he said.
The next big step will be the United States, Mr Steiner said, especially as whoever wins this year's presidential election is expected to be more willing to fight climate change than the Bush administration.