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The Kyoto climate change pact looked to be in trouble last night after the European commission warned that 13 of the EU's 15 member states were set to miss their emission reduction targets by a huge margin.
In a separate development, Russia appeared to turn its back on the protocol.
The 1997 United Nations pact is seen as the world's only chance to reduce global warming in a meaningful way and requires major industrialised countries to slash their 1990 greenhouse gas emissions.
Yesterday, however, Margot Wallstrom, the EU's environment commissioner, warned that the EU's own efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions were in crisis.
Ms Wallstrom said that only two countries, Sweden and the UK, were on track to meet the EU's target of cutting 1990 greenhouse emissions by 8% before 2010 and that 13 of the EU's 15 member states would easily miss that goal.
Brandishing an annual progress report on the subject, she said that the EU was on course to achieve only a 0.5% cut in its 1990 greenhouse gas levels with existing policies.
