http://www.environmentdaily.com
Republished
with permission of Environment Daily
http://www.environmentdaily.com
-------------------------
Europe's
great energy debate under review
Environment Daily
1244, 26/06/02
-------------------------
The
European Commission today underlined the EU's need to
develop a
"global concept of security"
of energy supply as it issued a
communication summarising
responses received to its energy security
green paper
issued in November 2000
Key messages that have
emerged from the debate, says the Commission,
are
the need for greater diversification of energy sources,
for
priority to be given to "an ambitious demand
management policy", and
for the EU to formulate
"a coordinated energy policy".
The green
paper's essential insight was Europe's dangerous dependence
on
imported and fossil fuel energies, and the likelihood
of this
increasing further. Its diagnosis and outline
proposals generated a
massive response, the Commission
notes. These included 236 written
submissions and
debates on the green paper in all key EU institutions.
As
well as a broad consensus on some issues, such as the
"strategic
axis of demand management",
the Commission reports divergence on others
including,
of course, nuclear power. Even here, it said today,
the
green paper has helped to foster debate, which
itself has pointed to
the need for "clear and
unequivocal" answers to the challenges of
radioactive
waste management.
Reiterating a pledge already
made by EU energy commissioner Loyola de
Palacio,
the communication also notes work underway to propose
"a truly
Community approach to nuclear safety"
Other
main lessons to be drawn from the debate, the Commission
said
today, include a need for better organisation
and coordinated use of
oil stocks, and closer relations
between the EU and external energy
suppliers. The
EU executive stressed that it was already responding
to
the new energy agenda, notably through the now
finalised renewable
energy directive and proposals
for directives on buildings energy
efficiency and
promotion of biofuels.
Follow up: Final
report on the green paper on security of supply
Text of draft Council Conclusions from Environment Council, June 25th 2002
Sections relevant to climate change. For full document go to http://ue.eu.int/pressData/fr/envir/71258.pdf
COUNCIL
CONCLUSIONS CONCERNING THE RATIFICATION OF THE KYOTO
PROTOCOL
AND THE ANNOUNCEMENT MADE BY AUSTRALIA:
"The
Council:
- expresses its satisfaction with the conclusion
of the internal ratification process of the Kyoto
Protocol
by having deposited the European Union’s sixteen
instruments of ratification at
UN Headquarters in
New York on Friday 31st May;
- welcomes the conclusion
of the ratification process of other Annex I Parties
and the progress
by other countries towards ratification;
-
emphasises the fact that more than 70 countries have
now ratified the Kyoto Protocol is a
clear signal
that this legally binding instrument with its targets
and timetables is the only
effective multilateral
framework for combating climate change;
- expresses
its disappointment with the announcement recently made
by the Prime Minister of
Australia relating to the
non ratification of the Kyoto Protocol;
- calls upon
all parties to the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change to live
up to their responsibilities
under this Convention and to reduce their greenhouse
gas
emissions to 1990-levels, and calls in particular
upon all Annex I countries that accepted the
comprehensive
and balanced package of decisions adopted in Bonn and
Marrakesh, to ratify
the Kyoto Protocol as soon as
possible."
CHANGEMENTS CLIMATIQUES -ECHANGE
DE DROITS D'EMISSION DE GAZ A EFFET DE SERRE
Le Conseil
a pris acte de l'état des travaux sur la proposition
de directive qui vise à créer un marché
communautaire
pour l'échange de droits d'émission dans
le cadre de la réduction globale des
émissions
de gaz à effet de serre exigée au titre
du Protocole de Kyoto.
Trois questions principales
restent en suspens à ce stade, relatives notamment
à la première phase
prévue en
2005-2007, à savoir la nature obligatoire ou
facultative du système d'échange de droits
d'émission,
le champ d'application de ce système et la méthode
d'octroi des droits à polluer.
La proposition
- tout en visant une réduction globale des émissions
de gaz à effet de serre - a pour
objectif
d'assurer le bon fonctionnement du marché intérieur
et de prévenir des distorsions de
concurrence
qui pourraient résulter de l'établissement
de systèmes nationaux séparés d'échange
de
droits d'émission. La première phase
du système proposé par la Commission,
allant du début de
2005 jusqu'à la
fin de 2007, précède la première
période des exigences prévues par le Protocole
de
Kyoto.
Il est rappelé que le Conseil
avait déjà débattu de la proposition
lors de sa session du 12 décembre
dernier,
et qu'il avait été saisi d'un premier
état des travaux lors de la session du 4 mars.
Republished with permission
of Environment Daily
http://www.environmentdaily.com
-------------------------
Austrian
climate strategy wins disapproval
Environment Daily
1239, 19/06/02
-------------------------
The
Austrian government confirmed its climate strategy yesterday,
aimed
at enabling the country to meet its Kyoto protocol greenhouse
gas
reduction target of 13% by 2008-12. Environment
minister Wilhelm
Molterer described the initiative,
agreed after months of intensive
talks, as a "breakthrough"
for climate policy. An initial strategy was
first
proposed nearly two years ago (ED 12/09/00
http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=8303).
Under
the strategy, there should be additional investment
in
climate-related measures of euros 90m in the years
until 2012. Biomass
and transport-related-projects
are the two largest components,
amounting to euros
21m.
Meanwhile, the government has underlined
the importance it thinks that
the Kyoto flexible
mechanisms will play in reaching the emissions
target
by reserving over one-third of the investment pot for
projects
carried out under the joint implementation
and clean development
mechanisms. Both involve claiming
emission credits for reductions
achieved abroad.
At
this stage it is unclear what will be done by the nine
provinces
and how much money will come from the federal
government. Greenhouse
gas emissions have actually
risen slightly from the 1990 level, and at
this stage
there is no indication that this trend is altering.
Austrian
environment group the Climate coalition welcomed the
strategy
but slammed the government's reliance on
projects undertaken abroad.
"That does not
help the world's climate, and prospects for the Austrian
economy
are ignored," said the group's director Wolfgang
Mehl.
The opposition social democrats also criticised
the government,
claiming the strategy had emerged
too late and was too imprecise.
"There is a
huge lack of figures and targets, and the money has
not
been fixed, so the fate of the strategy is still
open," said
spokesperson Ulli Sima.
Follow-up:
Austrian environment ministry strategy
http://gpool.lfrz.at/gpoolexport/media/file/klimastrategie.pdf;
Republished
with permission of Environment Daily
http://www.environmentdaily.com
-------------------------
Governments
mark time on global climate
Environment Daily 1237,
17/06/02
-------------------------
Two weeks
of low-key international discussions on climate change
ended
in Bonn, Germany, on Friday, marking the last
formal preparations for
the next conference of parties
to the UN climate change convention, to
be held in
New Delhi in October.
The political highlight
of an otherwise humdrum session came in
discussions
on the intergovernmental panel on climate change's third
assessment
report (ED 12/07/01
http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=10296).
Several
parties, including the EU, Switzerland, Slovenia and
Norway,
said the report justified further actions
against climate change,
including launching talks
on stronger emission reductions to be taken
by more
countries after 2012. Opponents such as Saudi Arabia
blocked
the move. The protocol itself does not require
negotiations on a
second "commitment period"
to begin until 2005.
Canada formally called for
discussions on its proposal to modify last
November's
Marrakech accord on the Kyoto protocol to give extra
credits
for "clean energy" exports. Most
other countries hotly oppose the
idea, arguing that
it would reopen deals closed in Marrakech with
damaging
political consequences.
Delegates discussed the
role of carbon sinks and tried, but failed, to
agree
a definition of forests. They also debated linkages
between the
Kyoto protocol's controls on the CFC
substitute chemicals HFCs, and the
Montreal protocol
on ozone layer protection, under which HFC usage is
regularly
promoted (ED 06/06/02
http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=12303).
Follow-up:
UNFCCC press release
http://unfccc.int/press/prel2002/pressrel170602.pdf.
See also detailed
reports from Earth Negotiations
Bulletin
http://www.iisd.ca/linkages/climate/sb16/.
Republished with
permission of Environment Daily
http://www.environmentdaily.com
-------------------------
Oil
companies urged to quit petroleum
Environment Daily
1236, 14/06/02
-------------------------
The
world's four leading oil companies - ExxonMobil, BP,
Shell and
TotalFinaElf - should follow the lead shown
by industrialised countries
under the Kyoto protocol
and reduce by 5% to 2012 from 1990 levels the
amount
of carbon dioxide emissions generated by their oil product
sales,
according to Greenpeace Germany.
Such a move would
amount to voluntary curbs on sales of oil, with
remaining
demand to be taken up by renewable energy sales. A report
written
for the group by German thinktank the Wuppertal institute
has
analysed the economic consequences involved.
The necessary investment
in renewables would be between
US$0.9-2.6bn (euros 1-2.8bn) annually,
it concludes.
Though
BP and Shell have established internal emission trading
programmes
to reduce greenhouse gas output beyond the headline
Kyoto
figure, voluntary curbs on product sales are,
as yet, not on the
table.
Follow-up: Greenpeace
Germany http://www.greepeace.de/, tel: +49 40 306 180,
and
the study http://www.stoppesso.de/static/oil_study.pdf.
Climate Changing, U.S. Says in Report
June 3, 2002
By
ANDREW C. REVKIN
New York Times
In a stark shift for the Bush administration,
the United
States has sent a climate report to the
United Nations
detailing specific and far-reaching
effects that it says
global warming will inflict
on the American environment.
In the report, the
administration for the first time mostly
blames human
actions for recent global warming. It says the
main
culprit is the burning of fossil fuels that send
heat-trapping
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
But while
the report says the United States will be
substantially
changed in the next few decades - "very
likely"
seeing the disruption of snow-fed water supplies,
more
stifling heat waves and the permanent disappearance
of
Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes, for
example -
it does not propose any major shift in
the administration's
policy on greenhouse gases.
It recommends adapting to inevitable changes.
It does not
recommend making rapid reductions in
greenhouse gases to
limit warming, the approach favored
by many environmental
groups and countries that have
accepted the Kyoto Protocol,
a climate treaty written
in the Clinton administration that
was rejected by
Mr. Bush.
The new document, "U.S. Climate
Action Report 2002,"
strongly concludes that
no matter what is done to cut
emissions in the future,
nothing can be done about the
environmental consequences
of several decades' worth of
carbon dioxide and other
heat-trapping gases already in the
atmosphere.
Its
emphasis on adapting to the inevitable fits in neatly
with
the climate plan Mr. Bush announced in February. He
called
for voluntary measures that would allow gas
emissions
to continue to rise, with the goal of slowing the
rate
of growth.
Yet the new report's predictions present
a sharp contrast
to previous statements on climate
change by the
administration, which has always spoken
in generalities and
emphasized the need for much
more research to resolve
scientific questions.
The
report, in fact, puts a substantial distance between
the
administration and companies that produce or, like
automakers,
depend on fossil fuels. Many companies and
trade
groups have continued to run publicity and lobbying
campaigns
questioning the validity of the science pointing
to
damaging results of global warming.
The distancing
could be an effort to rebuild Mr. Bush's
environmental
credentials after a bruising stretch of
defeats on
stances that favor energy production over
conservation,
notably the failure to win a Senate vote
opening
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to exploratory
oil
drilling.
But the report has alienated environmentalists,
too. Late
last week, after it was posted on the Web
site of the
Environmental Protection Agency, private
environmental
groups pounced on it, saying it pointed
to a jarring
disconnect between the administration's
findings on the
climate problem and its proposed
solutions.
"The Bush administration now
admits that global warming
will change America's
most unique wild places and wildlife
forever,"
said Mark Van Putten, the president of the
National
Wildlife Federation, a private environmental
group.
"How can it acknowledge global warming is a disaster
in
the making and then refuse to help solve the problem,
especially
when solutions are so clear?"
Scott McClellan,
a White House spokesman, said, "It is
important
to move forward on the president's strategies for
addressing
the challenge of climate change, and that's what
we're
continuing to do."
Many companies and trade
groups had sought last year to
tone down parts of
the report, the third prepared by the
United States
under the requirements of a 1992 climate
treaty but
the first under President Bush.
For the most
part, the document does not reflect industry's
wishes,
which were conveyed in letters during a period of
public
comment on a draft last year.
The report emphasizes
that global warming carries potential
benefits for
the nation, including increased agricultural
and
forest growth from longer growing seasons, and from
more
rainfall and carbon dioxide for photosynthesis.
But
it says environmental havoc is coming as well. "Some
of
the goods and services lost through the disappearance
or
fragmentation of natural ecosystems are likely
to be costly
or impossible to replace," the
report says.
The report also warns of the substantial
disruption of
snow-fed water supplies, the loss of
coastal and mountain
ecosystems and more frequent
heat waves. "A few ecosystems,
such as alpine
meadows in the Rocky Mountains and some
barrier islands,
are likely to disappear entirely in some
areas,"
it says. "Other ecosystems, such as Southeastern
forests,
are likely to experience major species shifts or
break
up into a mosaic of grasslands, woodlands and
forests."
Despite arguments by oil industry groups that
the evidence
is not yet clear, the report unambiguously
states that
humans are the likely cause of most of
the recent warming.
Phrases were adopted wholesale
from a National Academy of
Sciences climate study,
which was requested last spring by
the White House
and concluded that the warming was a
serious problem.
A government official familiar with the new report
said
that it had been under review at the White House
from
January until mid-April, but that few substantive
changes
were made.
Without a news release
or announcement, the new report was
shipped last
week to the United Nations offices that
administer
the treaty and posted on the Web (www.epa
.gov/globalwarming/publications
/car/).
A senior administration official involved
in climate policy
played down the significance of
the report, explaining that
policies on emissions
or international treaties would not
change as a result.
Global warming has become a significant, if second-tier,
political
issue recently, particularly since James M.
Jeffords,
the Vermont independent, became chairman of the
Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee last year.
Mr.
Jeffords has criticized the president's policy.
The
new report is the latest in a series on greenhouse
gases,
climate research, energy policies and related
matters
that are required of signatories to the United
Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was
signed
by Mr. Bush's father and ratified by the Senate.
The
convention lacks binding obligations to reduce gas
emissions
like those in the Kyoto Protocol.
Mr. Bush and
administration officials had previously been
careful
to avoid specifics and couch their views on coming
climate
shifts with substantial caveats. The president and
his
aides often described climate change as a "serious
issue,"
but rarely as a serious problem.
The report contains
some caveats of its own, but states
that the warming
trend has been under way for several
decades and
is likely to continue.
"Because of the momentum
in the climate system and natural
climate variability,
adapting to a changing climate is
inevitable,"
the report says. "The question is whether we
adapt
poorly or well."
Several industry groups
said the qualifications in parts of
the report were
welcome, but added that the overall message
was still
more dire than the facts justified and would
confuse
policy makers.
Dr. Russell O. Jones, a senior
economist for the American
Petroleum Institute who
wrote a letter to the Environmental
Protection Agency
a year ago seeking to purge projections
of specific
environmental impacts from the report, said it
was
"frustrating" to see that they remained.
"Adding
the caveats is useful, but the results are still as
meaningless,"
Dr. Jones said.
Republished with permission
of Environment Daily
http://www.environmentdaily.com
-------------------------
EU
back on track to ratify Kyoto protocol
Environment
Daily 1225, 30/05/02
-------------------------
Representatives
from all EU governments and the European Commission
will
formally ratify the UN Kyoto protocol on climate change
at a
ceremony in New York on Friday. The move marks
a key step towards
entry-into-force of binding greenhouse
gas emission limits for
industrialised countries.
EU
ratification of Kyoto is a highly symbolic step, underlining
the
bloc's determination to champion the protocol
and the multilateral
response to climate change that
it embodies against obstruction led by
the USA.
The
move pushes aside fears that Europe would not come through
on its
own promise to ratify by 31 May. It will also
give the EU strong moral
authority at the Johannesburg
world sustainability summit in late
August and early
September.
The EU chose 31 May as its ratification
deadline in the hope of seeing
the protocol enter
into force during the summit. In practice this
cannot
happen because too few other industrialised countries
will
ratify in time, but Europe will be able to claim
that it did its bit.
Ratification on time looked
in doubt up to the very last minute, with
the whole
bloc dependent on approval of its two last members,
Italy and
Greece (ED 23/05/02
http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=12201).
The
Italian senate formally approved the step only last
night.
Greece's approval came through only today.
Simultaneous
ratification by all EU states is required because the
protocol
sets the bloc a collective target to cut greenhouse
gas
emissions by 8% between 1990 and 2008-12. Under
this "bubble",
individual EU countries
have taken on widely differing commitments
through
a "burden sharing" arrangement.
As agreed
in 1997, the Kyoto protocol will enter into force 90
days
after it is ratified by 55 countries, including
industrialised states
accounting for at least 55%
of 1990 greenhouse gas emissions from this
group.
With EU ratification, the first requirement will be
met. The
second now looks certain also to be fulfilled,
but probably not for
another few months.
Romania
and the Czech Republic have already ratified and other
eastern
European countries are committed to doing
so soon. Norway could
officially ratify on Friday
or Monday, while Japan is also set to do so
next
week. This leaves only Russian support needed for the
55% of 1990
emissions barrier to be passed, which
is expected later this year.
Follow-up: See European
Commission climate change pages
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/climat/home_en.htm
and Kyoto
protocol ratification scorecard
http://www.climnet.org/EUenergy/ratification.htm
compiled by Climate
action network Europe, plus press
release
http://www.climnet.org/EUenergy/ratification/31-5-02_EUratifiesKP.pdf.