Stockholm  - Back to back meetings of European Union energy and environment ministers in Sweden this week are part of efforts to coordinate EU positions on climate change and energy efficiency.

On assuming the rotating presidency of the 27-nation EU on July 1, Sweden said one of its main tasks is to push for an international agreement on reducing greenhouse gases at a summit in Copenhagen in December.

The agreement is intended as a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Swedish Enterprise and Energy Minister Maud Olofsson on Thursday welcomes colleagues from other EU nations to discuss energy efficiency and how new jobs can emerge in a low-carbon economy.

On Friday, Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren and other enviroment ministers are to join them for a joint session.

"This is a special event," Olofsson said of the joint talks in Are, 630 kilometres north-west of Stockholm.

The joint session includes briefings from invited experts, including Lord Nicholas Stern, who in 2006 published a key analysis of the economic impact of climate change.

Olofsson said Stern's interventions may serve to "remind" ministers of the costs of "not doing anything."

Buyelwa Sonjica of South Africa, who holds the post as minister for water and environment, was also to attend that session along with Environment Commissioner Stvavros Dimas and Nobuo Tanaka, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Carlgren described the informal ministerial meeting as a chance to discuss EU positions in the runup to Copenhagen, and ensure "that environment ministers should be the engine within the EU and their governments to make sure that we can reach the results the EU has been striving for, for such a long time."

"There will be a need still for much further pressure on other parties from the EU side," Carlgren said of the negotiations in the months ahead prior to Copenhagen.

The EU has to "require very clear ambitions and commitments from other developed countries and we also have to challenge emerging economies to make sure that they can deliver sufficient contributions," he said.

The EU has said it is prepared for a 20-per-cent reduction in emissions by 2020, using 1990 as a base year.

And while the EU is prepared and wants to increase that share to 30 per cent, this "will not happen if we don't see other parties also deliver what is needed to reach the 2-degree target," Carlgren said.

Scientists have warned that if the world's average temperature rises by more than 2 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels, it will cause catastrophic changes to global weather patterns, triggering widespread storms, flooding, droughts and famines.

Carlgren was also likely to brief colleagues on a recent trip to China where he conveyed the message that China and other big emerging economies need to commit to reductions of carbon emissions.

Asked about the upcoming elections in Japan and the possible effects on climate talks, Carlgren told the German Press Agency dpa that "we will follow the events in Japan with great interest." (dpa)