The Government has backed a European offensive to counter global warming and improve the security of the EU's energy supplies.
European Commission proposals unveiled in Brussels by President Jose Manuel Barroso amount to the first EU common energy policy - echoing calls made by Prime Minister Tony Blair at the Hampton Court summit 15 months ago.
The plan was accompanied by dire warnings about the impact of climate change if nothing is done - rising seas and temperatures, crop failures and thousands of extra deaths in Europe from the heat, particularly in the south.
It was also predicted there would be fewer deaths in the north of Europe from the cold, due to global warming.
A Commission report called for nothing less than a "new industrial revolution" via the creation of a "low-carbon economy".
The report acknowledged it was a global problem, vowing to put the environment at the heart of all EU external relations policies in future.
For the EU itself, the Commission wants member states to commit themselves to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels; meet 20% of all energy demands from renewable sources (such as nuclear power, wind and wave farms), and 10% of vehicle fuel from biofuels, by 2020; and hold rising temperatures to no more than two 2 degrees centigrade above the 1990 level.
Environmentalist campaigners said the strategy was not ambitious enough to counter climate change or improve long-term energy supply security.
But the UK Government described it as a "groundbreaking and farsighted" plan. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said it put the EU on the fast-track to becoming the world's first low-carbon economy:
"I particularly welcome the proposals to move to emissions-free power generation in Europe by 2020 through the accelerated deployment of carbon capture and storage." she said.
