European Union emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for stoking global warming fell by 1.2 percent in 2007, paradoxically aided by a mild winter that cut heating demand, Reuters quoted EU data as showing today. Emissions by the 27-nation bloc in 2007, before the current global economic downturn, dipped to 9.2 percent below a 1990 benchmark year under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol for fighting climate change. EU governments have promised to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to slow global warming, and by 30 percent if other developed nations set comparable goals. "For the EU, there was a significant decline in the use of oil and gas, particularly in households," according to a report about 2007 data prepared for the EU Commission by the Copenhagen-based European Environment Agency. It said that a warmer winter was the main reason for a fall in demand for oil, gas and coal -- the biggest source of greenhouse gases from human activity -- for heating in households and offices. Energy prices also rose sharply in 2007. Emissions by manufacturing industries also fell, led by declines in Italy, Britain and Spain. But emissions rose from fossil fuel power plants, led by countries such as Germany, Spain, Greece and the Netherlands, it said. More than 190 nations have agreed to work out a new U.N. climate treaty by the end of 2009 to fight warming that the U.N. Climate Panel says will bring more droughts, floods, extinctions of species and rising sea levels.
