Nevertheless, the E.U.’s new sandwich wrap has the 27 member-nations agreeing to several goals.

- Carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 20 percent (compared to 1990 levels) across the E.U. by 2020.
- Renewable energy sources will make up 20 percent of the E.U.’s energy mix by 2020, up from about 6.5 percent today.
- Also by 2020, at least 10 percent of the motor-fuel mix will consist of biofuels.

The E.U. believes that electricity production is the prime playground for renewables, and that renewable electricity output can more than double from about 15 percent today to some 34 percent. But this goal fails to reflect the growing public hostility towards more land-gobbling wind turbines – or the significant extra costs involved in developing offshore wind. Biomass is also cited as contributing exponentially to this sector. Rampant deforestation from biomass feedstock growth and the food-versus-fuel debate have apparently not been considered by RERM’s architects.

RERM also sees renewables’ contribution to the heating and cooling sector doubling by 2020 from its current 9 percent. Yet again, biomass is invoked, along with “efficient household systems” as the key to success.

Biofuels are also cited as vital to the transport fuel sector. RERM hails Sweden’s 4-percent bioethanol market share and Brazil as the world leader with a 20-percent market share. Tropical cane sugar for ethanol production is specifically mentioned. But this again fails to take into account a pressing moral issue: do we prioritize feeding the internal combustion engine, or people? Environmental journalist George Monbiot has been leading the charge against biofuels, and recently called for a five-year freeze on new biofuel developments.

And that’s before we get to the E.U.’s political obstacles. France has demanded its nuclear power be included as part of its commitment – something Austria and Ireland oppose. Poland will be reluctant to give up its reliance on cheap coal – especially as neighboring Germany is building dozens of new coal-fired power plants. And neither France nor its eastern European neighbors want to accept the binding targets demanded by Germany, the U.K., Italy, and the Scandinavian countries.

In the U.K., a climate bill now being considered would set binding targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent by 2050, with an interim target of about 30 percent by 2020. It also has binding five-year “carbon budgets” that are set 15 years in advance to provide clarity for policy-makers and businesses.

Asked how the E.U. – the world’s largest economic bloc – will pay for its renewable energy transition, José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said “priorities will have to be rejigged” in the E.U.’s 100-billion euro budget. That’s an understatement. According to a report from leading consultants McKinsey & Co., the E.U. will have to find 1.1 trillion euros from its coffers over the next 14 years and invoke massive financial support from the European Investment Bank. It calculates “on the basis of a balanced, sensible application of the most easily accessible technology…the E.U. states will face annual costs of between 60 to 80 billion euros up until 2020.” (Just for comparison, at current rates, 1.1 trillion euros is about three times as much as Poland’s annual GDP.)

The E.U. presidency is plainly determined to throw down the CO2-cutting and renewables gauntlet at the G8 June meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany. Yet, on the hard-nosed facts, it is difficult to see how the E.U.’s political high-wire act – whose 27 members mostly missed their Kyoto targets and have vastly different economic agendas – will impress the G8 leaders, not least George W. Bush, who knows well enough that the voluntary CO2 emissions cuts by U.S. businesses have already outstripped the E.U.’s efforts.

Peter Glover is a U.K.-based journalist. For more, see his Web site, petercglover.com