(Updates with WWF) LONDON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - European Union leaders meeting at a summit on Friday unanimously agreed a deal on tackling climate change, which would see EU greenhouse gas emissions cut by one fifth below 1990 levels by 2020, an EU official said. Nine eastern European countries had threatened to veto the deal over worries that full auctioning of permits under the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme would cripple their industry, which relies heavily carbon-intensive coal. [ID:nLB277212] Under the agreement, industry in countries where more than a third of power is produced from coal and income per capita is less than half the EU average get free permits equal to up to 70 percent of their average annual emissions from 2005-2007, dropping to none free by 2020. These companies will also be able to import a higher portion of cheaper emissions offsets from developing countries to help meet EU targets. The leaders also agreed to earmark 300 million permits worth between 4.5 billion and 6 billion euros ($6 billion-$8 billion) for cutting-edge carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. ROBIN WEBSTER, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH CLIMATE CAMPAIGNER: "Huge loopholes allow big energy-users to carry on polluting and nations to buy offset 'credits' from abroad. Massive concessions were made to manufacturing industries, which will mean they are handed out rights to pollute." "The targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions are far too small. They should be at least 40 percent by 2020." KIRSTY CLOUGH, CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY OFFICER, WWF: "We feel the package didn't go far enough at all and could be considered a significant failure. It relies a lot on offsetting which would allow a lot of the targets to be met overseas outside the EU." "Auctioning (permits) has weakened it quite significantly. Worryingly, a lot of the other industrial sectors in the scheme will be allowed to opt out of having to purchase many of their allowances and it hasn't been proved that any of them are subject to undue, adverse competitiveness effects." EMMANUEL FAGES, COAL & CARBON ANALYST, SOCIETE GENERALE: "(The CCS funds) are not going to finance all the pilot projects they might want, but it's sending the right signal to support CCS. They shouldn't give too much, there should be private money to compliment the public funds." TREVOR SIKORSKI, HEAD OF CARBON RESEARCH, BARCLAYS CAPITAL: "It's great that the environmental integrity of the (emissions) cap is left intact. It was better to compromise on auctioning than on anything which would directly influence carbon prices. The worst thing for the carbon market would have been that the package was not agreed this year before the Parliament breaks up." ON CCS FUNDS: "6 billion euros is enough to get a number of demonstration plants up and running, but I don't know if it's enough for 12. Private money will also have to be added to the subsidies." MARK C. LEWIS, CARBON ANALYST, DEUTSCHE BANK: "Getting a deal trumped everything. If there was no deal, there was a risk of real drift towards (U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen) which would have destroyed Europe's credibility on the issue." ON AUCTIONING: "It means we have to live for a longer period time with the structural inefficiency the free allocation of permits gives to the market." (Reporting by Michael Szabo and Nina Chestney)
A destroyed bulldozer is seen at a burned area in the forest at the coastal town of Laguna Verde, some 115 km (71 miles) northwest of Santiago, in this March 6, ...
