EU climate change actions not enough, say MEPs 

The resolution, prepared by the Parliament's Temporary Committee on Climate Change (CLIM), argues that "existing climate change mitigation policies and related sustainable development practices, which must in any case be intensified, will nevertheless be insufficient to reduce global [greenhouse gas - GHG] emissions over the next decades".

For their part, EU member states, who account for approximately 20% of global GHG emissions, are making "good progress" in sharing the 'burden' of reducing CO2 emissions, "raising the likelihood that the EU will reach its Kyoto target by 2012," according to the resolution. 

But EU countries will have to be "more ambitious" if they are to meet the targets "of reducing their GHG emissions by 60% to 80% by 2050 compared to 1990," it says. 

The resolution also lashes out at "scientifically unsubstantiated efforts to portray the results of studies into the causes and effects of climate change as doubtful, uncertain or questionable".

During the Parliament's debate of the resolution, 40 MEPs backed an amendment referring to a study produced by the University of East Anglia in the UK, which notes a decrease in global average temperatures since 1998. The amendment had been put forward by Miroslav Ouvký, a Czech Christian Democrat MEP and chairman of the EP's Environment (ENVI) Committee, along with German Christian Democrat MEP Markus Pieper.

A majority of MEPs rejected the amendment, however. 

The CLIM Committee, headed by Italian Socialist MEP Guido Sacconi, was established in April 2007 and charged with conducting climate change-related analyses and feeding-related recommendations to EU policymakers. The committee's tenure, originally set to expire in May 2008, was extended by nine months on 18 February. It has no legislative powers as such.