Latest Developments
EU Summit - 8th - 9th March 2007
CAN-E Response to Council conclusions
9 MARCH 2007. The results of the Spring Council were, in general, positive steps forward, if not exactly the giant leap that the climate challenge demands.
On climate, EU Heads of Government (HoGs) agreed on an at-least-20% EU unilateral unconditional emissions reduction target by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.
In addition, the HoGs promised that the EU will take on a 30% by 2020 target if “other developed countries commit themselves to comparable emission reductions and economically more advanced developing countries to contributing adequately according to their responsibilities and respective capabilities”.
CAN welcomes the unilateral target as the first concrete commitment by any Party to emissions reductions post 2012. However, since the science indicates that developed countries need to reduce their emissions by 30% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels, this latter target is, in CAN’s view, what the EU needed to put forward as its unilateral offering, if it is serious about fulfilling its own objective of keeping global average temperature increases below 2ºC. The separate agreement on a binding renewables target was also braodly welcomed.
In addition to seeking broader participation, the HoGs endorsed a number of elements for the future post 2012 agreement, including agreeing deeper absolute emissions reductions by developed countries, extending the carbon market, increasing technology cooperation, enhancing adaptation, reducing deforestation and including emissions from aviation and maritime transportation in the emissions reductions efforts.
CAN looks forward to seeing the details on how these very admirable aims are to be achieved. Encouragingly, the HoGs recognised that negotiations to realise these aims will need to be launched at the end of 2007. Unfortunately, though, they omitted to specifically endorse their own Environment Ministers’ conclusion that agreement would need to be reached by 2009 to avoid a gap between the Kyoto Protocol’s first and putative second commitment periods. From the experience of the Kyoto Protocol, several years will be required for Parties to ratify the new agreement and for it to come into force. It is unfortunate that the HoGs did not specifically state their intention to ‘Mind the Gap’.
EU Energy package unveiled
10 JANUARY 2007. The Commission proposals on energy use fall short of laying out a roadmap for the paradigm shift in European energy consumption patterns that is required for a sustainable future. The Commission’s measures point mostly in the right direction, but lack the scale of ambition that the climate challenge requires. The new scenario published by the Commission gives only a 50:50 chance of staying below a global average temperature increase of 2ºC, the Commission’s own accepted definition of dangerous climate change.
This gives the impression that the Commission appears prepared to take an unacceptable gamble on the planet’s future. Although the EU accepts the need for a 30% reduction in emissions by 2020 for industrialised countries, this target is conditional on other developed countries accepting a similar target. The present state of the national-level political stance o the US means that the EU has effectively limited itself to its unilateral, unconditional target of 20% emissions reductions.
While this unilateral target is to be welcomed as a sign of clear political leadership by the EU, and a breaking of the political deadlock seen in the international climate negotiations, the EU 20% reduction target is in itself disappointing. It is even less than the -30% to which some member states, including the UK, France and Sweden, have publicly backed, and means that Germany’s conditional offer to accept a 40% reduction has been effectively spurned.
On the international level, the need for appropriate emissions reductions strategies by the more economically advanced developing countries is obvious from the science and a key challenge for the EU is to work with these countries to help to deliver these reductions.
All documents pertaining to the Energy and Climate Change Press Conference by President Barroso
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