European nations are not doing enough to fight climate change and should show more leadership before they criticise the United States and Asia, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said today.
Achim Steiner said in an interview with Bild am Sonntagnewspaper that climate change has been caused primarily by carbon dioxide emissions from Western industrialised nations and it was their responsibility to lead the fight against it.
He said the US and Asia were now moving faster in the fight against climate change than Europe, which he said has grown complacent.
"The Americans and Asians are catching up quickly and are becoming strong business competitors [with green technologies]," Mr Steiner said, in excerpts of the interview released ahead of Sunday's publication.
"But in Europe we've cherished the illusion in recent years that 'we've done enough'," he added.
He said Germany, which holds the European Union presidency, for "showing initiative" but added that was not enough as Europe's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
The European Union's environment commissioner earlier this month said Germany's lack of progress in cutting greenhouse gas emissions was holding back international efforts to combat global warming.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed to make fighting climate change a centrepiece of Germany's twin EU and G8 presidencies. But Germany's recent track record on cutting carbon dioxide emissions is poor.
Carbon dioxide (CO2), produced by burning fossil fuels, traps heat in the atmosphere. Scientists say if emissions are not curbed sea levels will rise, while drought and floods will have more dire consequences. The
Mr Steiner also said it Europeans were wrong to think China had no interest in the environment.
"The climate problem of today was not caused by China but above all by Western nations. So the first step has to come from us. Moreover, it's wrong to assume that China is not interested in climate protection."
Mr Steiner pointed out that the Chinese government last year launched a $180 billion renewable energy programme. "We've only been looking at China through brown smog coloured glasses," he said. "But there are already cities being planned [in China] that will have zero CO2 emissions."