Off the wire
• Austria establishes places for 1,700 asylum seekers under new law  • Spanish stock market falls 1.05 pct, closes at 10,100 points  • CoE Congress urges cities to take stronger preventative measures against radicalisation  • Tourists assured of more security ahead of Tanzania's polls  • Lithuanian government to free abducted sailors  • Urgent: U.S., Russia sign agreement on safe flight operations over Syria  • 1st LD: Chinese president lauds "community of shared interests" with Britain  • Severe drought hits southern Madagascar  • Chinese culture permeates fabric of British society  • Feature: Europe's oldest Chinatown needs to tell its story to the world, say cultural campaigners  
You are here: 　 Home

Austria will meet EU climate targets: environment minister

Xinhua, October 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

Austria is on track to meet climate and energy targets by the year 2020 despite a prognosis from the EU's European Environment Agency (EEA) on Tuesday that suggests otherwise, its environment minister said on Tuesday.

Speaking to the APA, federal minister of environment Andrae Rupprechter said even with present measures Austria would meet the set targets.

EEA Executive Director Hans Bruyninckx had earlier in Brussels presented an annual forecast report, in which Austria along with Belgium, Ireland, and Luxembourg were named as four countries in the union not on schedule to meet greenhouse emissions targets.

Rupprechter argued that the reason for the poor EEA prognosis is that Austria's present environmental protection measures are only set in stone until 2018, in line with the legislature period.

For the remaining two years in which the targets are to be reached, it would be assumed that climate protection measures would be maintained or even strengthened, Rupprechter said.

"We will more than meet the targets," he said, noting also that Austria had already come in under the emissions targets in 2013/2014. Endit