SPAIN OFF TARGET

SPAIN said yesterday its greenhouse gas emissions had risen 34.8 percent between 1990 and 2000, showing the country is far from reaching international targets for taming pollution. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations pact to tackle global warming, the European Union has promised to cut emissions to eight percent below 1990 levels by the end of the decade. Spain, as a poorer country within the 15-nation bloc, was given an easier target of allowing emissions to rise no more than 15 percent above 1990 levels. The increase, which coincides with a period of rapid economic growth in Spain, is more than double that in the United States which opted out of Kyoto for fear of economic consequences. Spain's National Statistics Institute said emissions in the European Union as a whole fell 3.5 percent. The United States saw a rise of 14.2 percent in the same period. Spain has recently taken steps to curb pollution. Spanish power utilities have started bringing on line more energy efficient plants, and Spain overtook the United States last year to become the world's number two wind power producer after Germany.
EU has promised to cut emissions to 8 percent below 1990 levels