EU ministers agree national climate goals

EU environment ministers have failed to reach an agreement on an emissions trading system but did agree on draft rules on how to manage forests as carbon sinks.

(File Image) A plume of steam billows from the coal-fired Merrimack Station in Bow, New Hampshire, in January 2015. Source: AP

EU environment ministers have agreed on national emissions-reduction targets and forest management rules in a push to show the bloc is delivering on its climate goals ahead of United Nations talks next month to fight global warming.

The European Union, the world's third-largest emitter and a key broker of the 2015 Paris climate pact to curb greenhouse gases, sees adopting the legislation as key to its credibility and influence on how the global climate rules are written.

The EU's role in complying on behalf of the world's developed countries has a higher profile since the administration of President Donald Trump announced this year that the US will withdraw from the Paris accord.

The EU assigns member nations targets for slashing greenhouse gas emissions ranging from zero to 40 per cent to achieve the bloc's overall goal of at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030.

Ministers voiced hope agreement on the politically sensitive targets, which will require an economic shift to low-carbon technology in the transport, farming, waste and building sectors, can help unlock tough talks on other climate files.

Hours of talks over reforms to the EU emissions trading system, a cap-and-trade permit system to regulate industry pollution, ended without an agreement early on Friday.

However, ministers of the 28-nation bloc agreed on draft rules on how to manage forests, whose role as carbon sinks is promoted by the Paris pact among 195 nations, despite forest-rich nations Finland, Poland and Croatia contesting the proposed compromise.

"This shows that the EU takes leadership and does something rather than just talk," Denmark's Minister of Energy, Utilities and Climate, Lars Christian Lilleholt, told Reuters.

Environmental campaigners said the accord, which still needs to be negotiated with the European parliament, did not go far enough to curb the worst effects of rising temperatures, blamed for causing more floods, heat waves and rising sea levels.

They criticised measures aimed at helping lower-income EU countries meet their obligations.