Brussels - European Union environment ministers were left groping for inspiration on how to tackle issues of climate change Tuesday after United Nations talks in Copenhagen ended in what the EU saw as a "disaster" organized by the United States and China. The EU had hoped to lead the way in forging an ambitious UN deal on fighting climate change, but ended up ruthlessly sidelined by a handful of powerful states.
"Ministers are going to meet today to discuss how to proceed after this disaster we really had in Copenhagen ... It really was a great failure, and we also have to learn from that," said Sweden's environment minister Andreas Carlgren, who chaired the meeting.
Sweden currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.
Ahead of the Copenhagen talks, which ended on Saturday, the EU had pushed for a legally-binding deal which would bring every country in the world into a common system for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and funding the fight against global warming.
"It's important to make sure that there will be an international system that really can also take care of all states, not just the big ones," Carlgren said.
But the talks ended in fiasco as the US, China, Brazil, India and South Africa agreed a deal which left all the main questions unanswered. That deal so angered the meeting of 120 heads of state and government that they refused to endorse it.
"This was mainly about other countries (being) really unwilling, and especially the US and China," Carlgren said, terming the agreement the "lowest common denominator."
EU states are now desperately wondering how to put new momentum into the talks. Suggestions on the table include calling for a new import tax on goods from countries with insufficient climate-change laws and pushing for an EU pledge of even higher emissions cuts to shame other powers - notably the US - into doing the same.
So far, the EU has pledged to cut emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. It had promised to deepen that cut to 30 per cent if Copenhagen produced an ambitious deal, but EU leaders ruled out that option as soon as the talks ended.
