UK’s Tony Blair signed up to the EU targets three months before he resigned as prime minister in June. They include a 20% reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions, compared with 1990 levels, or 30% if other developed nations agree to take similar action.

A spokesman for Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, said although the EU‘s aims were “ambitious,” UK was “on course to meet” its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, ratified in 2002. Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said four to five per cent of electricity comes from renewables and the country is on course for that to be three times as much – 15% – by 2015.

Environmental groups said instead of trying to meet commitments, however, they are trying to avoid them by using nuclear power, which they say is not renewable.