LONDON — Worried about the costs of reducing greenhouse- gas emissions in the face of a worldwide economic downturn, more European nations are dragging their heels on making pledged emissions cuts, raising fears that already lagging international climate talks could stall.
Last year, European leaders agreed to an ambitious plan to reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions 20 percent by 2020, from a 1990 baseline. But a host of mainly poorer European countries, including Italy and Poland, long reluctant to agree to big emissions cuts, are now threatening to water down or veto Europe’s climate plan. That could reduce pressure on a new U.S. administration, as well as major greenhouse-gas emitters such as China, to come up with ambitious plans of their own.
