Britain was embroiled in a row with the European Union today after Brussels announced proposals to impose tariffs on the United States because of its failure to implement environmental targets.

Malcolm Wicks, the British Energy Minister, said that the plans, announced in London last night by Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, amounted to "protectionism".

The move is designed to ensure that firms in the EU, where climate change controls are tighter, are not put at a competitive disadvantage due to the cutbacks they have to make. However, it has caused immediate anger in the US, where the White House said it was "dismayed" by what it claimed was a tariff barrier and warned that it would resist it.

Mr Wicks, interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, also rejected the proposals, saying: "We are against any measures which might look like trade barriers.

"There is always the danger that the protectionists in Europe - and they do exist - could use this as a kind of secret weapon to bring about protectionism."

Mr Wicks said the UK would favour "a more sensitive approach", which made allowances for European manufacturers so that they were not at a competitive disadvantage while not punishing other countries which did trade with the bloc.

"We put our faith in international agreements. We need more and more countries to take carbon seriously and to initiate schemes like emissions trading schemes. That would be our approach," the Minister added.

A source at Mr Wicks's Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform said the plans had taken the Government by surprise. The source added that Britain had not yet decided how to formally respond within the framework of the EU.

Speaking last night at a business conference in London, Mr Barroso revealed that the Commission could "require importers to obtain allowances (emissions permits) alongside European competitors".

He added: "There would be no point in pushing EU companies to cut emissions if the only result is that production and indeed pollution shifts to countries with no carbon disciplines at all."

The dispute comes as the European Commission tomorrow prepares to release its strategy detailing how to implement an agreement struck last March, at which leaders agreed to cut carbon dioxide emission levels so that, by 2020, they are 20 per cent lower than in 1990. This target could go up to 30 per cent, depending on the outcome of talks with international partners.

They also agreed to a 20 per cent increase in the use of renewable energy and for biofuels to make up 10 per cent of all transport fuels in the EU by 2020.

The US and China agreed to no such targets, however, when they attended the UN summit in Bali in December, despite EU pressure. Although the main industrialised countries at the summit, including America, agreed to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, they refused to agree to the EU's proposal for a target of 25 to 40 per cent of cuts by 2020.

Speaking at the time, environmental campaigners claimed the world’s biggest carbon emitters had effectively been left free to carry on expanding such emissions for many more years to come.

This morning, the US said it was "dismayed" at Mr Barroso's carbon tariffs suggestion, claiming it had previously received assurances from Peter Mandelson, the EU's Trade Commissioner, that the US would not be penalised.

“We have been dismayed at a variety of suggestions where we see climate or the environment being used as an excuse to close markets,” Susan Schwab, the US Trade Representative, said.

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