One of the unfortunate secrets behind the EU's recent directive to cut CO2 emissions 20 percent by 2020 is that adopting the directive doesn't mean countries will face penalties for failing to comply. Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Friends of the Earth (FOE) have been running a BigAsk campaign for the last two years in the UK to thus ask the government to take up binding short-term targets for CO2 reductions. FOE says short-term targets help politicians get the ball rolling now instead of saving the heavy lifting for later years, and that BigAsk's efforts have helped lead to draft legislation expected this summer in the UK with year by year CO2 emissions reductions in Britain.

So the campaign was launched last week in 16 other European nations, including Denmark, Sweden and Finland in Scandinavia all the way down to Spain and Malta in southern Europe. FOE says targets should be closer to 30 percent reductions by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050.

Yorke said at the Brussels launch,

"We will never wake from the nightmare of climate change unless our national governments and the European Union act. They are the only ones who can put the structures in place that will help us tackle climate change."

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