By Subramaniam Sharma and Gaurav Singh
Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Barack Obama is unlikely to match a European Union pledge to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by as much as 30 percent from 1990 levels because it's too ambitious, United Nations Climate Chief Yvo de Boer said.
The EU goal is for 2020. By that year the U.S. is projected to be releasing 34 percent more greenhouse gases compared with the same base year, de Boer said today in New Delhi. Europe is taking bigger steps to trim pollution from cars, factories and power plants than those under way in the world's biggest economy.
"I don't think that is feasible for the U.S.," the United Nations official told reporters at a conference, referring to equaling the EU goal.
Finding a common emissions target is crucial to negotiations De Boer supervises among 192 countries for a new climate-protection treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. That agreement set limits for 37 developed nations that expire in 2012.
Obama made an election pledge to bring U.S. emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020. That's less than a promise by the 27-nation European Union to slash the gases by 20 percent by 2020. The EU additionally offered as much as a 30 percent decline, dependent on a treaty being brokered that contains "comparable reductions" by other developed nations.
"What the Obama administration has already signaled is incredibly important," de Boer said. "President Obama has currently offered to return emission levels to 1990 levels by 2020. Whether he goes beyond that is part of the international negotiations."
No Kyoto Signup
The U.S. didn't sign up to Kyoto, the only international treaty to stem climate change. The UN is seeking to broker a new deal in December in Copenhagen that draws all nations into the fight against global warming, which the world body's scientists say is causing sea levels to rise, an increased frequency of droughts and making storms more intense.
"Because of Kyoto, Europe will already reduce its emissions by 8 percent by 2010 so for Europe to go to minus 20 percent, it means a 12 percent reduction," de Boer said. "And then there are other factors. The European population is not growing but the American population is."
Obama has said he wants the U.S. to take the lead on negotiating comprehensive greenhouse-gas reductions to counter what scientists say is a warming global climate. The Bush administration opposed Kyoto because the treaty didn't include emissions limits for fast-growing developing nations such as China and India.
Obama has pledged to spend $150 billion over 10 years to combat climate change, build clean energy and create "green" jobs.
Following California's Lead
Last month Obama opened the way for California and other states to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and trucks to curb global warming. The president directed his Environmental Protection Administration chief, Lisa Jackson, to reconsider California's request for a waiver to begin a state program aimed at cutting gases tied to global warming by 30 percent by 2016.
Automakers have said permitting California's standards would add billions of dollars in costs to an industry struggling after auto sales plunged to 13.2 million in 2008 from the average of about 16 million annually in the past decade.
"I hope that in every country of the world the economic recovery package will be used to produce tomorrow's technology," said de Boer. "I hope that car manufacturers will use the package to make cars of the future rather than cars of the past."
The European Union has said the U.S. should join the international market to curb carbon dioxide within six years.
The EU called for a CO2 cap-and-trade market linking members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 30 industrialized nations, by 2015..
The European system, the world's biggest greenhouse-gas market, requires power plants and factories that exceed their CO2 caps to buy permits from businesses that emit less. The EU program began in 2005.
Europe, which accounts for about 14 percent of global emissions, needs help from the U.S. and China, the biggest emitters, to meet an objective of limiting the average global temperature increase to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre- industrial levels.
To contact the reporters on this story: Subramaniam Sharma in New Delhi at ssharma@bloomberg.netGaurav Singh in New Delhi at gsingh31@bloomberg.net
