BRUSSELS - The Europe Union wants a U.S. climate change bill to succeed so the United States can move swiftly to curb greenhouse gas emissions, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Friday.
Barroso said Europe was closely watching U.S. lawmakers as they discuss the Waxman-Markey bill that would set up a cap-and-trade program to limit how much carbon dioxide power plants and other major polluters could release.
"We want the U.S. to go as far and as fast as they can on climate change," Barroso said. "We want Waxman-Markey to succeed. ... Rarely, perhaps, has U.S. domestic legislation been so carefully monitored internationally."
"President Obama's personal commitment ... has amounted to nothing less than a sea-change in the U.S. position. His leadership means that the United States is now back at the table (at international climate change talks)," Barroso said.
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have been increasing at about 1 percent a year and are expected to continue to go up if no mandatory reductions are required.
EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said that the heads of the G8 group of developed countries had "a great opportunity" at a July 8-10 meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, to agree on deeper reductions in carbon dioxide emissions for a new global pact later this year.
"We need a breakthrough right now," he said.
Neither the U.S., Japan nor the EU has so far committed to making cuts of between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020 that U.N. scientists say are needed to avoid a catastrophic rise in sea levels, harsher storms and droughts and climate disruptions.
Developing countries are calling on industrialized nations to promise major emission reductions when they discuss a new global climate change pact in Copenhagen in December.
The U.S. has not laid out any target so far but this week ruled out a 40 percent cut below 1990 levels.
The Waxman-Markey bill -- proposed by Representatives Henry Waxman and Ed Markey -- would launch a major U.S. effort to confront global warming and begin a shift away from fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy.
It would require the U.S. to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and about 80 percent by the next century.
It would potentially add costs to electricity generation and heavy industry because they would have to buy extra permits to pollute more than a certain amount. This aims to give them a financial incentive to use cleaner technology to reduce emissions.
A similar cap-and-trade program has been up and running in the EU since 2005 but failed initially to trigger major emissions cuts because too many permits were handed out. Tighter limits were set for the second phase of the program from 2008 to 2012.
The EU says it will reduce emissions by 20 percent -- but step that up to 30 percent if other regions do the same. Japan has promised a 15 percent cut of its own emissions and pay for carbon offsets in developing countries to represent another 5 percent.
Australia -- which is not part of the G8 group -- says it will make a 25 percent cut, a major turnaround. Australia and the U.S. were the only two major industrialized nations not to agree greenhouse gas reductions at the last global climate deal struck in Kyoto in 1997.
