8 summit BERLIN, MARCH 10, SPA -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that she hopes to achieve another «step in the right direction» against climate change at the G-8 summit in June after she steered the European Union to a bold set of measures to fight global warming, reported ap. Merkel, whose country holds the presidency of both the EU and Group of Eight, argued ahead of this week's EU summit that Europe should set an example for others _ such as the U.S. and China _ to follow. EU leaders agreed that greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels over the next 13 years. They pledged that a fifth of the bloc's energy would come from green power by 2020. «With this, Europe has a leading role, and we believe that we can also create more jobs and more export opportunities for people in the European Union through more innovation in these areas,» Merkel said in her weekly video podcast. «Beyond that, we think Europe will inspire others with its example to implement more attractive and better climate production targets _ I mean, for example, the United States of America, India and China,» she added. «We want to bring up this issue at the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm in June, and I hope that there will then be a step in the right direction, that more people in the world will say they are ready to do something about climate change,» Merkel said. The EU says it could go even further than its promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels and reduce them by 30 percent if other countries join.
