"To minimize the causes and impacts of climate change in Europe"

Pollution from Factory Heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) are building up in the atmosphere as increasing amounts of coal, oil and gas are burnt for energy. In 1995, governments from around the world endorsed the scientific consensus that this is having a negative impact on the climate. Nature and human welfare will suffer dire consequences if too little is done to reduce CO2 emissions. The EU and its citizens bear a disproportionate responsibility for this problem and must lead the international drive for solutions.

Relying on expert analysis, WWF has been pressing the EU to implement a strategy to make the first cuts in CO2 emissions well within the next decade. But the EU is back-tracking and it allowed its own much weaker proposal to be further watered down at the Kyoto climate summit in December 1997. WWF believes that the EU's best chance of influencing the continuing series of international climate negotiations is to capitalise on its industrial leadership in energy-saving technologies and non-polluting renewable energy sources.

Over the past year, WWF has highlighted practical steps that politicians, businesses and consumers can take to help ward off the threat of climate change. As well as arranging European workshops on policies and measures, WWF collaborated with the German company AEG which agreed to make further improvements in the energy efficiency of its leading household appliances. WWF's involvement with the Dutch and German building sectors has helped commercialize housing technologies that dramatically cut energy use. In both these countries, as in the UK, WWF has worked with electricity utilities to promote sales of renewable energy.

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