BACKGROUND: The EU's (partial) recipe for Copenhagen

Oct 21, 2009, 14:07 GMT

Luxembourg - These are the main points which European Union environment ministers think should be covered by a deal on fighting climate change in Copenhagen in December: 

TARGETS: global warming should be limited to 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels.

By 2020, developed countries should cut their emissions to around 30 per cent below 1990 levels. Emissions in developing economies should be some 30 per cent lower than they would have been without efforts to fight global warming.

Developed states' targets should be legally binding.

By 2050, global greenhouse-gas emissions should fall to half of their 1990 levels. Developed economies should cut emissions to 80-95 per cent below 1990 levels.

Human emissions should level off at 2 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per person per year by 2050. At present, EU average per-capita emissions are 10.2 tons CO2e per person per year.

CARBON MARKETS: the EU has set up a scheme aimed at cutting industrial emissions by making companies buy permits to emit greenhouse gases, the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Firms which cut emissions can sell excess permits to those which do not.

Other developed economies should set up their own ETS - sometimes called carbon markets - and link them to the EU one to create a global market by 2015.

Rising powers such as Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa should join the world carbon market by 2020.

In the long run, some major industries - as yet undefined but likely to include electricity generators and metal producers - should be made to join the world ETS no matter where they are based.

TECHNOLOGY: all countries should do more to promote research into climate issues. Rich countries should cooperate with poorer ones on research projects, especially into clean energy.

However, a Copenhagen deal should protect firms' patent rights.

FORESTS: forested countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and Russia should manage their forests rather than just cutting them down.

Countries which manage their forests properly could be rewarded with credits on international carbon markets.

MANAGEMENT: every country except the poorest should draw up a plan of how it will make its economy climate-friendly, should publish emissions data and list priority emissions-reduction projects.

Rich nations would analyse developing nations' plans to see where they could offer aid. Plans and projects would be independently tested so that donors can be sure that their money is not misspent.

STATUS: the Copenhagen deal should be legally binding and have a 'strong and effective' enforcement system.

TIMING: the deal should come into force on January 1, 2013.

PROBLEMS: the EU has not yet managed to decide how it will help pay poorer countries to fight climate change, nor how it will split the bill between its members.

It is also deadlocked over what to do with up to 150 billion dollars' worth of emissions permits held by Russia, Ukraine and Eastern EU states.

The holders of the permits want to be allowed to sell them once any Copenhagen deal comes into force, but Western states say that doing so would cause global carbon markets to collapse.

EU officials say that agreement on those issues will be crucial to any deal in Copenhagen.