A European Union target of a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030 to address climate change has been criticized both by industry and green businesses.
Leaders of industry have complained the challenges they face may make meeting such goals hugely difficult, while green firms complained the EU didn't go far enough in pushing for low-carbon investments.
EU leaders acknowledged the 40 percent goal is ambitious, but called it a signal to countries like China and the United States to step up to the challenge at a United Nations climate summit set for December 2015 in Paris.
"Europe is setting an example," French President Francois Hollande said of the agreement reached in Brussels on Oct. 24.
EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard agreed.
"This decision and this message will be listened to in Washington and in Beijing and many other capitals," she said.
Green campaigners, while welcoming the 40 percent target, expressed concerns over whether it would turn out to be sufficient.
"(It) falls far too short of what the EU needs to do to pull its weight in the fight against climate change," said Natalia Alonso of Oxfam. "Insufficient action like this from the world's richest countries places yet more burden on the poorest people most affected by climate change, but least responsible for causing this crisis."
Green groups criticized the final EU agreement for what they called the "softening" of target levels that would have increased wind, solar and additional renewable sources of energy.
Currently, about 14 percent of the EU's energy comes from renewable sources.
Even if the 40 percent target is met it could leave the EU poorly positioned to achieve an 80 percent reduction by 2050 that most experts agree is the minimum needed to hold the increase in worldwide average temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius, environmentalists said.
"This deal does nothing to end Europe's dependency on fossil fuels or to speed up our transition to a clean energy future," said Brook Riley of Friends of the Earth. "It's a deal that puts dirty industry interests ahead of citizens and the planet."
Greenhouse gas emissions of the 28 member states of the European Union presently account for about 10 percent of world totals.
The agreement reached in Brussels makes the European Union the first major global economy to set emission targets beyond 2020.
"This agreement keeps Europe firmly in the driving seat in international climate talks ahead of the Paris summit next year," EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.
