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Italy will sign EU climate plan with revision clause: report
2008-10-19
ROME (AFP) - Italy will sign the EU's climate plan in December but only on condition the deal is revisited at the end of 2009 once real costs have been analysed, ANSA news agency reported Saturday. Despite rebuking the European Union's climate and energy package for its high cost, ANSA said Italy could approve the plan if it includes a clause allowing for its revision following a cost-efficiency report to be produced in 2009. Together with Poland and Germany, Italy has voiced concern about the strain of the EU's climate-change goals on industry. ANSA said the government will argue its position during Monday's meeting of EU environment ministers in Luxembourg. Last year the EU vowed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels. It also pledged to have renewable energies make up 20 percent of all energy sources. At the end of the EU's Brussels summit on Thursday, leaders stood by their climate-change targets and timetable for the package in spite of Italian and Polish threats to veto the plan. "The climate package is so important that we cannot simply drop it, under the pretext of a financial crisis," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency. Italy says the plan will cost each country around 25 billion euros (33 billion dollars) a year. But the EU environment commission challenged this, putting the cost at around 12 billion euros. On Saturday, Italy's minister for innovation, Renato Brunetta, called the EU climate deal "an act of madness" for governments and businesses. "Europe has few reasons to criticise us because the plan is an act of madness, both for businesses and governments," ANSA reported Brunetta as saying during a protest in northern Italy. "We want a clean environment. We want environmental control, but without killing our businesses and our families," he added. At the Brussels summit, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi threatened to torpedo the EU climate plans, branding them too big a burden for business amid the global financial crisis. He finally accepted a compromise in exchange for the package being adopted unanimously by all 27 countries at their next summit in mid-December.
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