The European Union has committed itself to tackling climate change as key European leaders, including Britain's Tony Blair, commenced a summit in Brussels this week.

|PIC1|Key figures vowed to cut carbon emissions by at least 20 per cent from the 1990 levels by 2020.

Despite the encouraging news, a binding target on the use of renewable fuels has still not been agreed among the nations.

However, current EU President, German Chancellor Angela Merkel explained that she was hopeful that an agreement could still be forthcoming.

Prior to the summit, Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters that there was a real possibility to show how Europe could lead a debate on climate change, energy security and deregulation.

"There is a fantastic opportunity under the German presidency to show world leadership on a number of big issues," Blair said.

The drive to cut carbon emissions hinge on increasing the use of renewable fuels over the coming years, and the European leaders called for all countries to increase usage in this area by 20 per cent.

The first day of the summit concluded on Thursday evening, and Merkel told reporters that good progress had been made from the gathering. She said: "What has been agreed is a massive step forward from whatever point of view you take."

Keeping hope in a deal being struck on the second day, over fixed targets on renewable energy sources, Merkel added: "We talked about specific obligations - increasing energy efficiency, bio fuels, renewable energy. There is a need for further discussion on these three areas."

Differences in opinion did emerge, however, as French President Jacques Chirac demanded that nuclear power be considered part of any plan to be agreed. The German Chancellor replied that nuclear energy was clearly not a renewable energy source, but did concede that it probably was necessary to consider this as part of the overall strategy to cut carbon emissions.

One particular worry for Europe is the dependency of eastern European countries on heavy industry and carbon-heavy coal, the BBC reported. Eastern European countries would find it difficult to invest significantly enough in wind farms and solar power to meet the proposed targets.