The European Union has done enough talking about tackling climate change and needs to get on with doing something about it, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted on Sunday as saying. "We have talked for long enough -- now we must act," Barroso told newspaper Bild am Sonntag in an interview.

An EU summit next month offered the bloc's leaders the opportunity "to take decisive measures concerning one of the biggest global challenges of our time," he said. Barroso reiterated the EU Commission's goal for developed nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020.

"Citizens want such goals to be reached," he said. "And we cannot afford not to achieve this goal." Bild am Sonntag also reported that German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel wanted new EU standards to ban inefficient light bulbs, and said he had written to EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas to press his case.

Germany holds the EU's rotating presidency for the first half of this year. Studies showed the EU could reduce its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 25 million tonnes annually if households and the services sector switched from using traditional light bulbs to energy saving lights, the paper reported Gabriel as writing.

"Europe can no longer afford products that, like conventional light bulbs, are only five percent efficient," Gabriel wrote. "From my viewpoint, ambitious efficiency criteria for lights need to be introduced in this area of regulation".
(Planet Ark, 26/02/2007)