It is crucial for the European Union (EU), and not only for the European Union, in order to gather an effective fight against climate change we need this range of reductions for developed countries by 2020, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told reporters in Bali, Indonesia, yesterday.

"The EU set a target of 30 percent (by 2020) provided that other developed countries come along, or even more than 30 percent if it is necessary," he said, adding that the EU has proposed rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020.

But the EU's proposal was rejected by the United States delegates to the conference on the grounds that it would "prejudge the outcome of negotiations" and slow down its economic growth.

A draft text of the conference, written by delegates from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa as an unofficial guide for delegates from over 180 countries at the Dec. 3-14 UN climate talks, said that the developed nations should reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in a range of 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 as part of a new pact preventing the worst impacts of climate change.

The draft has been widely debated by delegates to the UN conference from over 180 countries in the past days.

The Dec. 3-14 UN climate change conference is tasked with laying out a "roadmap" for negotiations on a new climate deal before the current phase of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

The developing countries want the industrialized countries to take bigger responsibilities in cutting greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change, while some developed nations want to bind all nations to greenhouse gas curbs.