Nov 3, 2009, 10:35 GMT
Stockholm - Concrete emission cuts are key to averting harmful global warming, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Tuesday, urging other countries to follow 'the EU's lead'.
'Other developed economies have to show the same leadership and commit to similar ambitious emission cuts, present proposals on financing and intensify their efforts,' Reinfeldt said in an op-ed piece in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper just hours before he was to take part in a EU-US summit in Washington.
Sweden is the current holder of the rotating EU presidency.
'My message to both President Obama, the Senate and Congress is - now we must focus on climate,' he added. 'We are agreed on what needs to be done in the long-term, but in order to succeed we also need an aggressive mid-term target.'
'With less than a month to the climate summit in Copenahgen, the EU stands more united than before. The (EU) summit last week gave us a strong negotiating mandate,' Reinfeldt said, underlining that 'EU efforts alone are not sufficient.'
Later this week, Reinfeldt was to take part in a EU-India summit in New Delhi and at the end of the month he was to visit Beijing for a EU-China summit.
Although India's emissions per capita were relatively low, 'it was not reasonable with today's knowledge to presume that some countries have the right to increased emissions,' Reinfeldt said, noting that India had a big potential for using more energy efficient solutions and renewable sources like solar power.
On China which 'has passed the US as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases,' Reinfeldt said his message to Beijing was to 'raise your ambitions so that the emissions peak latest 2020 and then begin to reduce.'
Reinfeldt said that the Copenhagen parley in December 'might not be the final stage,' noting that the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012 was concluded in 2001 and not in 1997. ' But it would be a major political failure if thre is no agreement in December.'
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