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BRUSSELS: The European Union's executive arm unveiled yesterday details on how to slash greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth in 2020, including mandatory targets to produce renewable energy and curb industrial emissions.
The European Commission said member states unable to meet mandatory renewables targets at home could pay other EU countries to install the likes of wind and solar power on their behalf.
In a planned overhaul from 2013 of the EU's emissions trading scheme, covering high carbon-emitting industry, the commission proposed to cut by 2020 the supply of emissions permits by 21 percent versus 2005 emissions.
Sectors not covered by the trading scheme must cut their overall emissions by 10 percent versus 2005 levels by 2020.
Power generators would pay from 2013 for all permits to emit carbon dioxide, most of which they previously got for free.
Sectors vulnerable to international competition would initially get all permits free in 2013.
The Commission estimated revenue for member states from selling permits at 50 billion euros ($73 billion) a year by 2020 and urged them to use it to support clean technologies in Europe and developing countries.
EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the new package of measures will cost just the equivalent of $4.35 a week per EU citizen.
The price of not doing anything would be more than 10 times that, he said.
He said the EU program was good for the planet, good for the economy and good for EU citizens.
"There is a cost, but it is manageable," he told EU lawmakers.
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