The German cabinet agreed on a new package of measures on
Wednesday to reduce the country's greenhouse emissions up to 40
percent by 2020.
The cabinet agreed on over a dozen laws and regulations,
including one that will ensure that by 2020 half of German
electricity comes from renewable energy or highly efficient heat
and power plants.
"I think this is the biggest and most ambitious set of laws and
guidelines you'll find anywhere in the world," German Environment
Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters after the cabinet
meeting.
The agreement was expected to send a strong signal to the
delegates in Bali, Indonesia for a major U.N. Climate Change
conference which is expected to kick off the deadlocked
international negotiations on reduction of global carbon emissions
before the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
Germany has vowed to cut its carbon emissions up to 40 percent
below 1990 levels by 2020 despite bitter complaints from some
industrial leaders that the aspiring goal seemed somewhat "
unrealistic."
In March, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, then chair of the
European Union, persuaded other EU leaders during an EU summit in
Brussels to unilaterally cut the 27-bloc's emissions by 20 percent
by 2020.
(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2007)
