On the tortuous road to saving the planet from climate change, one traffic rule stands out. Drivers who speed risk paying a price. For the European Union to venture out of the slow lane with a pledge to adopt by 2009 binding targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions is therefore a bigger achievement than it sounds. The agreement by 27 nations at last week's EU summit could go on to shape a wider international deal. More is the pity, then, that special pleading to protect some of the bloc's biggest industrial polluters risks undermining that progress. Tough targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions should be an important part of a successor treaty to the Kyoto protocol, which is due to expire in 2012. As long as the targets are legally binding, and not merely voluntary, they could provide a robust framework for making the deep cuts in emissions that will be needed to avert global warming. Yet targets will achieve little on their own. Make them too ambitious