Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the credit crunch was no reason to go back on ambitious EU plans to combat global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, cutting energy consumption and promoting alternative energy sources.

"This is not a luxury we now have to forego. Saving the planet is not an after-dinner drink, a 'digestif' that you take or leave. Climate change does not disappear because of the financial crisis," Barroso told a news conference.

He was speaking on the eve of a two-day European Union summit whose agenda has been hijacked by measures to overcome the financial crisis, rescue banks and protect savers.

Barroso said the EU should stick to its goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, saving 20 percent through energy efficiency and deriving 20 percent of power from renewable sources by the same year.

"Of course in a crisis, governments become more defensive," he said, adding that the EU should achieve those goals flexibly.

An Italian official said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would call for "a pause of reflection" in EU climate change legislation and a possible postponement of the targets.

In Warsaw, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said building a low-carbon economy was the key to future growth and jobs and would help, not hinder, governments' efforts to overcome the financial crisis.

France, holder of the EU's revolving presidency, aims to reach political agreement among the 27 member states and with the European Parliament on the climate package in December.

But several countries have voiced concern at the likely cost to industry of the EU's green energy ambitions now that several west European economies are either in recession or facing that prospect because of the crisis.

The EU's biggest employers' organization, BusinessEurope, said the crisis would significantly reduce its forecast of 1.7 percent economic growth in the euro zone next year and warned that the climate change program would hurt the international competitiveness of European industry.

"No clear and effective response is visible yet for addressing the heavy extra costs that are planned for European manufacturing industry," the lobby group said in a statement.

Diplomats said Italy and Poland have been most forthright in EU ministerial meetings in the past week in demanding a rethink of the goals adopted in more prosperous times in March 2007.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she continues to back the so-called 20-20-20 targets but wants guarantees that energy-intensive heavy industries such as steel, cement and aluminum will be protected from unfair competition from countries with lower environmental standards.

Berlin wants those industries to be promised now free allocations of emissions permits in 2013 unless other states accept similar curbs on emissions in an international agreement.

Britain, among the countries hardest hit by the banking crisis because of London's role as a global financial center, is among countries urging the EU to stick to the climate policy.

Diplomats said Foreign Secretary David Miliband told his EU colleagues on Monday that record oil prices earlier this year showed Europe faced not only a credit crunch but also "a serious resource crunch" and must reduce dependence on imported energy.

Environmental pressure groups Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and WWF urged the EU leaders in statements and open letters not to allow the financial crisis to overshadow what WWF called "the climate crisis."

The world's biggest environmental network, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), called for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and said financial turmoil should not sideline work to safeguard animals and plants.

The French EU presidency has outlined potential compromises on key issues such as free emissions allowances for heavy industry, and temporary free allocations for power generators in countries not fully integrated into the European grid.

But diplomats said the leaders were not yet ready to make such concessions in isolation and there was likely to be a package deal solution at a mid-December summit.