Merkel urges action to combat climate change ahead of EU energy summit

Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking before an EU energy summit Thursday, said a commitment to use more renewable sources of energy and other urgent measures are needed to stop global warming.

"It's not five minutes to midnight, it's five minutes after midnight," she said Wednesday night on ARD television.

Merkel, whose country holds the European Union presidency, said new technologies need to be developed that would use energy more efficiently.

She affirmed support for the goal of requiring 20 percent of all energy used to be from renewable sources by 2020.

At the two-day summit in Brussels that begins Thursday evening, EU leaders are expected to approve plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent, also by 2020.

But Merkel's renewable energy goal is more contentious among the 27 EU nations, which have been unable to agree on the specifics of how to develop a low-carbon economy.

Though it has been argued that switching from fossil fuels to renewable resources could hurt Europe's competitiveness, Merkel said the research and development of alternative energy would create jobs.

European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering _ a member of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union _ said in remarks to Germany's Die Welt newspaper that targets could be even more ambitious.

He said he would recommend at the summit a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and a requirement that 25 percent of energy must be from renewable sources.

"The parliament is more ambitious here than the council presidency," Poettering was quoted as saying.