EU to tackle methane gases, boost energy efficiency

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union unveiled Wednesday new plans to help slow down global warming, including a strategy to tackle highly polluting methane gas emissions and a plan to renovate millions of old buildings around the 27-nation bloc to make them more energy efficient.

The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, also made public a scheme to limit environmental damage from dangerous chemicals, and to restrict their use in toys, cosmetics, detergents and products that might touch food.

The EU sees itself as a world leader in climate and environmental policy. It wants to slash greenhouse gas emissions to at least 55% of what they were in 1990 over the next decade. That goal is a stepping-stone toward the broader aim of producing zero net polluting emissions across Europe by 2050.

“Tackling climate change and caring for our environment requires us to rethink the way we live,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said before the new plans were made public. “We are taking the steps, one by one, to get there.”

One of the biggest causes of climate change is methane gas emissions, second only to carbon dioxide, and the gas also causes serious health problems. Most emissions come from the energy, agriculture and waste sectors.

“To reach our 55% ambition we would need to reduce our methane emissions by one third,” EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson told reporters, as EU leaders prepare to thrash out on Thursday an agreement on how to move forward on the climate targets by the end of the year.

A key priority of the strategy is to improve the way methane emissions are measured and reported, and use EU satellites to locate major emitters or find major gas leaks. Energy companies would be pressed to repair leaks more quickly and new rules proposed to limit the release and burning of waste...