Industrialised nations aim to cut emissions 15-21 per cent by 2020

Rich nations, excluding the US, are already planning to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of between 15 and 21 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, according to official figures released at the UN's climate change meeting in Bonn yesterday.

The data was compiled from climate change plans from across the industrialised nations, including the EU, Russia, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

It found that based on existing proposals, overall greenhouse emissions across the 39 countries classified as industrialised under the Kyoto Protocol would fall from 12.53 billion tonnes in 1990 to between 10.71 billion and 9.86 billion tonnes in 2020.

The official figures exclude the US, which never ratified the Kyoto Treaty and is working on its own emission targets as part of the Waxman-Markey bill that is awaiting a vote in the Senate.

However, inclusion of the US in the figures is expected to drag down the average cuts agreed by industrialised nations as the targets being considered as part of the proposed bill are limited to returning US emissions to just below 1990 levels by 2020.

The latest figures are unlikely to satisfy either the UN's panel of climate scientists, who have called for cuts of between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020, or emerging economies such as China and India, which have demanded that industrialised nations sign up to a 40 per cent target.

Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate change official, told news agency Reuters that the current emissions targets set out by rich nations for 2020 were "miles away" from that required if they are to meet their stated aim of cutting emissions 80 per cent by 2050 and limiting temperature rises to two degrees by the end of the century.

However, he also said that this week's talks had "got off to a good start" as negotiators from 180 countries seek to condense the 200-page draft text ahead of the Copenhagen meeting in December.

The latest figures come just a day after new research from German renewable energy trade body IWR found that global carbon emissions rose 1.94 per cent in 2008 to 31.5 billion metric tonnes.

The institute said that despite the onset of the global recession in the second half of the year, global CO2 emissions still rose for the tenth year in succession.

The group is recommending that the UN ditches straight emission reduction targets in favour of renewable energy investment targets that would require those countries with the highest emissions to invest more in low-carbon energy sources.