EU executive adopts blueprint for climate fight

By Paul Taylor and Gerard Wynn

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's executive adopted plans on Wednesday to slash greenhouse gas emissions, seeking to push the world into tough climate action, but delayed key decisions on how to soften the impact on industry.

The plans will transform Europe's energy supply by 2020, with a 10-fold increase in renewable energy production in Britain for example, and raise power bills by 10 to 15 percent.

The European Commission said the measures were a vital step in the fight against global warming and other countries must now join the effort.

"Europe and the rest of the world have to act fast, and act boldly, if we are to prevent this catastrophe," said EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.

The measures would also curb the bloc's rising dependency on imports of fossil fuels.

"We do not want to be dependent on regimes that are not our friends and want to protect ourselves from them," Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told the European Parliament in presenting the plan.

The renewables targets would wean the 27-nation bloc off coal and oil, as would a decision that power generators must pay from 2013 for all permits to emit carbon dioxide, most of which they now get for free, likely to slash coal plant profits.

German utility RWE said it called into question the future of coal -- "Coal is threatened in its economic viability," RWE's head of power generation, Ulrich Jobs, told Reuters.