Ministers stated that the European Union is hesitant to increase its carbon emissions reduction target from 20 percent to 30 percent unless other countries demonstrate a stronger willingness to do the same. The EU's current goal is to reduce carbon dioxide by 20 percent from 1990 levels in the next decade. However, they have agreed to deepen this reduction to 30 percent if other nations also commit to similar targets. The United Nations has set a deadline of Jan. 31 for countries to pledge emissions cuts, but the EU does not believe that major economies will announce comparable targets by then. Spanish Secretary of State for Climate Change Teresa Ribera stated that it is unlikely that the EU will be able to achieve this. The EU's decision to lead climate talks was widely expected, as it accounts for about 14 percent of the world's CO2 emissions. Despite being marginalized at last year's meeting in Copenhagen, environmentalists pushed for a more aggressive target. The EU has not ruled out adopting a 30-percent cut in emissions later, if concessions can be gained from other countries. Connie Hedegaard, the nominee for European climate commissioner, expressed hope that the EU's conditions for moving to a 30 percent cut would be met before a meeting in Mexico later this year. Before the Copenhagen talks, the United Nations had urged affluent nations to reduce emissions by 25-40 percent by 2020 to limit the average increase in worldwide temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.