Earth Summit: Oil nations 'guilty of nuclear blackmail' over energy targets

Oil-exporting countries and the United States subjected the world to nuclear blackmail last night to try to prevent the Earth Summit setting targets for increasing the use of renewable energy.

They added clauses in effect supporting nuclear power to a sensitive package on energy in the summit's proposed action plan, in a direct response to a plea from the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who called in his speech for "concrete objectives and measures'' on renewable energy at the Earth Summit.

They indicated they would remove the references to atomic power, which would greatly embarrass Mr Schröder as he approaches an election in his strongly anti-nuclear country, only if the EU dropped reference to targets from clean renewable sources.

The move was the latest setback to what was once a bright hope that the summit would endorse a rapid extension of renewable energy, particularly in developing countries. It is seen as one of the most important ways to tackle poverty by bringing electricity to third-world villages. It would reduce the two million deaths a year by breathing smoke from wood and dung fires, and it would help maintain fertility of the land by reducing the amount of traditional fuels taken from it while combating global warming.

Officials said last night that a general deal on promoting renewable energy had been agreed, but that no targets had been set.

Last year, a task force set up by the G8 countries on Tony Blair's initiative under the chairmanship of Sir Mark Moody-Stuart recommended measures that would have brought renewable energy to one billion people over the next 10 years. But the proposal was abandoned, despite its public backing, after opposition from Opec countries and the US.

Another ambitious proposal by Latin American countries led by Brazil – for the world to get 10 per cent of its energy from clean renewable sources by 2010 – was also buried by the same coalition of interest.

The only target remaining on the table is one from the EU that would increase the amount of renewable energy in the world by only 1 per cent over the decade. But Opec and the US were still manoeuvring to kill it last night.

Addressing the summit yesterday, the Brazilian President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, said: "By the year 2010, 10 per cent of total energy consumption should come from renewable sources. Latin American and Caribbean countries support this target." The European Union proposed a 15 per cent target for that date.

Chancellor Schröder said that the floods that had hit his country, Austria, the Czech Republic and China recently "showed clearly climate change is no longer a sceptical forecast but a bitter reality, demanding decisive action". He said Germany would give €500m (£300m) in aid to promote renewable energy in the Third World and planned an international conference on the subject.

By contrast, Tony Blair, despite his initiative with the G8, avoided any mention of the contentious subject. Like Mr Schröder, he indirectly challenged President George Bush to ratify the Kyoto treaty combating global warming, but otherwise confined himself to generalities. He said the problems and the solutions to them were known and called for the "political will'' to deliver the answers. But he then undermined his words by rapidly leaving the summit after a few hours, without making concrete proposals.

By early yesterday, negotiators had settled all the contentious issues facing the summit except for women's reproductive rights which called for better health services "consistent with national laws and cultural and religious values". Some delegates said the US was opposing a reference to human or women's rights because it might open the door for approval for abortion, a highly controversial issue in the US.

In the biggest breakthrough, the US reluctantly dropped its opposition to a target to cut the number of the people in the world without basic sanitation in half by the year 2015.