EUROPE’S efforts to meet its Kyoto protocol targets for greenhouse gas emissions are heading for trouble after Germany, the driving force behind the continent’s emissions reductions for the past 15 years, slammed on the brakes.
Since 1990, Germany has cut its emissions by 17.5 per cent, more than any other country in the European Union. Its Kyoto target is a 21 per cent cut, but on 28 June the environment ministry revealed that it would only require a further 0.6 per cent cut from its major industrial emitters between now and 2010. To make matters worse, it exempted new power…
