Global-warming cuts pledged

Britain stands ready to cut its global-warming pollution by up to 10 per cent by 2010, John Gummer, Secretary of State for the Environment, said yesterday.

The UK would have to cut consumption of coal, oil and gas correspondingly to deliver.

Mr Gummer told a press conference launching new Department of Trade and Industry energy forecasts that Britain would easily meet its promise at the Rio Earth Summit to stabilise annual emissions of carbon dioxide - the most important greenhouse gas - at the 1990 level by 2000, thus outperforming almost every other industrialised nation.