The EU's Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas is confident that EU countries will meet Kyoto Protocol goals of reducing emissions of the gases that cause global warming by 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The EU-15 (the 15 nations that made up the EU when Kyoto was agreed upon) cut emissions by 1.6 percent in 2007, bringing their total reductions to 5 percent below 1990 levels. The EU-27, which includes the 12 countries that joined in 2004 and 2007, cut emissions by 1.2 percent, bringing their total to 9.3 percent below 1990 levels.

While the 12 newest EU countries are not bound to EU-wide Kyoto promises, all member states, with the exception of Cyprus and Malta, are bound to individual reduction goals.

This latest drop "gives us confidence that we will successfully reach our Kyoto target," Dimas said in a statement on Friday. "The proactive climate policies and measures taken nationally and at EU level since Kyoto are starting to pay off."

Cuts may not be as significant as they sound

The EU's own report admits that the EU-15 reductions were due mainly to a warmer winter and industry reductions, which suggests that European citizens have not changed their energy-consumption habits. New figures released by the Copenhagen-based European Environmental Agency (EEA) indicate that EU policies have had little effect on car and household emissions, which make up a quarter of the bloc's total greenhouse gas output.

With Kyoto set to expire in 2012, the bigger issue may be whether the EU can meet its own greenhouse gas reduction targets. In March 2007 the EU agreed to cut emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.

United Nations talks scheduled to take plan in Copenhagen later this year are intended to produce a climate change agreement to replace Kyoto.

hf/AFP/AP/dpa
Editor: Susan Houlton