EU sets sights on climate target deal by September

By Stine Jacobsen and Kate Abnett

COPENHAGEN/BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Most European Union countries have backed plans to agree a deal on their new climate change target by September, sources familiar with the discussions said on Friday.

EU countries are negotiating their new 2040 climate change target, which the Commission last week proposed should be a 90% emissions reduction from 1990 levels, although countries would be allowed to buy international carbon credits to meet a limited share of the goal.

Denmark, which took over the EU's rotating presidency this month and is chairing negotiations among countries on the target, aims to strike a deal at a summit of ministers in September, Denmark's energy and climate ministry said in a statement on Friday.

"It is extremely important that we unite the EU around new climate goals... We have a very small window to put a bow on these negotiations," Danish climate minister Lars Aagaard said, following a meeting of EU countries' climate ministers in Aalborg, Denmark, which concluded on Friday.

In the meeting, most of the EU's 27 member countries backed the plan to land a deal on the 2040 climate target in September, three sources familiar with the talks said.

But a handful of countries, including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, opposed a fast-tracked deal - while others demanded changes to the Commission's proposal, the sources said.

"This is not a decision that we can just take lightly, it's affecting the whole economy. Working under such time pressure is just not reasonable," Polish deputy climate minister Krzysztof Bolesta told Reuters, of the proposed September deadline.

Spokespeople for Hungary and the Czech Republic's EU representations each confirmed their governments opposed the September deadline.

Climate change has made Europe the world's fastest-warming continent, fuelling deadly heatwaves and fires. But the 2040 target has stoked political tensions over how ambitious to be in tackling climate change, at a time when Europe is sharply raising defence spending and attempting to support struggling local industries.

To attempt to win over sceptical governments, the Commission proposed flexibilities that would soften the 90% emissions target for European companies.

Bolesta said countries had raised concerns in Friday's meeting over issues including a lack of clarity on how these flexibilities would work.

The EU faces a mid-September deadline to submit a new 2035 climate target to the U.N. - which the Commission has said should be derived from the 2040 goal.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett and Stine Jacobsen; Editing by Alex Richardson)