France has no option but to try to push through ambitious measures to fight climate change during its EU presidency from next month ahead of thorny global talks for a post-Kyoto deal at the end of next year.
It hopes to step up solidarity among member states on energy security during its six-month stint at the head of the EU.
"The French presidency will place absolute priority on climate and energy," French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said at the energy council last week.
The EU presented in January draft reforms to the bloc's energy sector, to implement ambitious measures to fight climate change agreed by EU leaders last year.
That 2007 landmark package set binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth and consume 20 per cent of all energy from renewable sources by 2020, but EU lawmakers and 27 governments must still back draft directives to implement it.
There is an urgent need for a deal to be clinched under the French presidency if the EU wants to be the kingmaker of any global climate change deal by the end of next year in Copenhagen.
"Europe (must) stay the course, have confidence in the judgments we made last year and deliver upon them," said John Ashton, climate change representative at Britain's foreign ministry, referring to "fragile" consensus in the light of a global economic slowdown and soaring energy costs.
"The number of hurdles is countless," a source at the French Environment Ministry said, adding that a key issue was the short negotiation period.
"Most texts came out on January 23 and we need to secure a deal in December," the source said, adding negotiations based on such complex texts would usually take two to three years.
"This is close to a 'mission impossible', but we are going to have to do it," the source said. "It will be very tricky." The Kyoto protocol, a pact agreed by governments to reduce CO2 emitted by rich countries to at least five per cent below 1990 levels, will end at the end of 2012.
"To have a new treaty by the end of 2012, we need a political agreement... by 2009 or 2010 at the latest... otherwise the carbon market will collapse," the ministry source added.
The EU set up a vanguard carbon market in January 2005 under which around 12,000 factories and power stations were given free carbon quotas.