European Union tackles the greenhouse effect

European Union governments, which are preparing for the United Nations meeting on climate change to be held in Berlin at the end of March, have given a cautious reception to the European Commission's six point plan for tackling the greenhouse effect. The strategy, largely drafted by the environment commissioner, Ritt Bjerregaard, and her colleague responsible for energy policy, Christos Papoutsis, examines ways of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, widely believed to cause climate change, between 2000 and 2010.

The commission argues that there is appreciable technical potential in a range of policy areas—from transport to taxation—to reduce emissions of CO² by up to a tenth by 2010 from …