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The following fact box compares national goals for fighting climate change, from the United States to India, after Australia's top climate adviser proposed 2020 greenhouse gas emissions targets on Friday.
The data compares the widely varying plans with a 1990 base year in the UN's Climate Convention and its Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels.
The 37 nations bound by Kyoto have agreed to consider cuts of between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, a range indicated by the UN Climate Panel as needed to avoid the worst of droughts, floods, heat waves and rising seas.
Almost no governments have set such tough goals. Developed nations pledged last year to make "comparable" efforts:
AUSTRALIA - Climate Change advisor Ross Garnaut called on Friday for cuts of at least 10 percent, and up to 25 percent, in 2000 emissions by 2020. "Under Kyoto accounting rules Australia's emissions were almost the same in 1990 and 2000," his report says. The centre-left government already aims to cut emissions by 60 percent below 2000 levels by 2050.
UNITED STATES - President George W. Bush in April set a 2025 peak for US emissions, by when US emissions are likely to be about 30 percent above 1990 levels. Bush's likely successors want far tougher goals. Democrat Barack Obama favours cutting US emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Republican John McCain aims to cut to 1990 levels by 2020 with a 60 percent cut below 1990 levels by 2050.
EUROPEAN UNION - EU leaders agreed in 2007 to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and by 30 percent if other nations make similar cuts. That implies a 14.2 percent cut from 2005 levels by 2020, according to the European Commission. EU leaders want rich countries to aim to reduce emissions by 60 to 80 percent by 2050, compared to 1990.
JAPAN - Tokyo plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050, implying a cut of about 14 percent by 2020 from 2005. That would put emissions about 4 percent below the 1990 Kyoto benchmark by 2020.
CANADA - The government's "Turning the Corner" plan seeks to cut emissions by 20 percent below 2006 levels by 2020 and envisages cuts of 60 to 70 percent below 2006 by 2050. Applied to the usual Kyoto 1990 benchmark, a 20 percent cut from 2006 would put emissions 2.7 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
NORWAY - Aims to cut emissions by 30 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and to be "carbon neutral" by 2030, when any emissions will be offset by cuts elsewhere.
NEW ZEALAND - Aims to be "carbon neutral" in the total energy sector by 2040.
SOUTH KOREA - The government plans next year to set a 2020 target to curb rising emissions. South Korean currently has no obligations for curbs under the Kyoto Protocol.
DEVELOPING NATIONS
CHINA - The government's 2006-10 plan aims to reduce energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product by 20 percent, curbing the rise of greenhouse gas emissions. Beijing also plans to quadruple gross domestic product between 2001 and 2020 while only doubling energy use.
INDIA - New Delhi says priority must go to economic growth to end poverty while shifting, under a national action plan unveiled in June, to clean energies led by solar power. The government is setting no greenhouse caps but says per capita emissions will never exceed those of developed nations.
SOUTH AFRICA - The government aims to brake rising emissions and offers a scenario under which emissions will rise until 2020-25, stay flat for up to a decade and then fall. It will set mandatory energy efficiency targets and a shift away from coal.
COSTA RICA - Aims to cut its net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2021, the 200th anniversary of independence.
BROADER SOLUTIONS
THE KYOTO PROTOCOL - A pact binding all rich nations except the United States to cut emissions on average by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
GROUP OF EIGHT - Leading industrial nations agreed at a G8 summit in Japan in July to a "vision" of cutting world emissions of greenhouse gases by 50 percent by 2050.
GLOBAL - About 190 nations agreed at a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2007 to work out a treaty by the end of 2009 to succeed Kyoto, comprising deeper emissions cuts by rich nations and action by poor countries to slow rising emissions.
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Article Compiled by Alister Doyle in Oslo, Editing by Anthony Barker : Content from Reuters Blog
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