EU urged to press for legally-binding deal at UN climate summit

Oxfam International has urged next month's UN summit in Copenhagen to "deliver action, not hollow promises."

The demand comes amid growing gloom that the much-awaited summit will fail to reach a legally-binding agreement on tackling CO2 emissions.

Antonio Hill, the charity's climate adviser, said, "The world's poorest countries who are already struggling to survive in a changing climate, need action, not more hollow promises."

He said any emission reduction targets agreed at Copenhagen "must be locked into a legally-binding agreement."

The ambition of a Copenhagen treaty is to do what Kyoto, the world's first climate treaty, failed to do: include all the key emitters and frame a global programme of emissions cuts.

To date, the EU has offered a collective cut of 20 per cent, though upping that to 30 per cent if a global deal is done.

Meanwhile, parliament has confirmed it will host a major event on global warming and food policy a week before the summit in Copenhagen.

The event on 3 December features two star speakers, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri and Sir Paul McCartney.

Both are expected to urge legislators and experts to focus on what an individual can do to fight climate change, for example by eating less meat.

The hearing, called "Global Warming and Food Policy: Less Meat, Less Heat" takes place in parliament's plenary chamber in Brussels.

It will be chaired by parliament's vice president Edward McMillan-Scott and will be opened by the assembly's president Jerzy Buzek.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) produced a major report, entitled 'Livestock's Long Shadow' in 2006, which said that "meat production is much less efficient in the use of various inputs and very intensive in emissions of greenhouse gases and water use as compared to equivalent vegetarian food production."

McMillan-Scott said next month's event reflects a perception that climate change needs to be addressed at all levels, especially individual but also at local, regional, national, across Europe and worldwide.

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