European leaders have reached a compromise deal on how to cut
carbon emissions, diplomats said, on the second day of a heads
of state summit in Brussels. The plan lays out the ways in which
the EU's 27 members will cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 and
is intended to set an example for world efforts to tackle
climate change. It includes various burden-sharing measures
meant to ensure that the cost of curbing pollution will not
impede economic growth. The cost of the plan had caused uproar
among many poor eastern European countries, many heavily reliant
on coal for power, as the continent grapples with economic
downturn. As EU leaders set the seal on plans to cut emissions,
the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, expressed hope that a deal
in Brussels could give impetus to UN climate change talks in
Poznan, Poland, which are laying the groundwork for a global
climate deal in 2009. "I am cautiously optimistic that we will
manage to have a ...