Cabinet pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Slovakia has committed itself until 2020 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent compared to 1990 levels. This follows from the document titled Proposal to Adopt the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the Cabinet approved at its meeting on Wednesday. The Environment Ministry presented the document, and the Amendment was adopted by the signatories to the Kyoto Protocol, including Slovakia and the European Union, at a conference in Doha, Qatar, in December 2012, and their task is to now ratify it by February 2015. The Amendment includes among gases whose emissions signatories agreed to reduce by 2020, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), among others. The commitment of the signatories of the Amendment is to reduce by 2020 the emissions of these substances by at least 18 percent compared to 1990 levels. For Slovakia, the amendment does not involve any new commitments, whereas the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent was anchored in the European Union's climate and energy package already back in 2009.