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of Environment Daily
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-------------------------
MEPs
bid to frame future of EU climate policy
Environment
Daily 1294, 25/09/02
-------------------------
MEPs
today presented their manifesto for future EU-level
policies to
curb greenhouse gas emissions. In a resolution
adopted in Strasbourg,
the European parliament broadly
endorses a climate change programme
drafted for the
bloc by the European Commission last year (ED 23/10/01
http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=10871).
It
demands speedier implementation of measures already
floated but
contains few new proposals for action.
The
most important thing now is for the Commission and member
states
to fulfil the programme," rapporteur
MEP Anneli Hulthén told
Environment Daily
after the resolution was adopted by the parliament's
plenary
session. The Commission had only acted on 12 of 42 possible
policy
actions so far, she said.
Much concern centres
on energy policy. MEPs want binding objectives
to
be inserted into the new combined heat and power directive,
as well
as early draft legislation on minimum energy
efficiency standards for
appliances and energy demand
management.
They also want the Commission to "force
the pace" of national climate
strategies by
using the integrated pollution prevention and control
directive
to improve industrial efficiency. Climate campaigner
Giulio
Volpi of WWF said the parliament had given
the Commission "a wake-up
call on the urgent
need for energy saving".
The parliament called
for a directive on biofuel-based heat production
to
go alongside similar draft EU laws to promote biofuels
in transport.
This should cover forestry and agricultural
fuels as well as energy
from sorted industrial waste,
it said. Mr Volpi was "not happy to see
waste
there", but said it was an advance on the definition
of biomass
in the EU's renewables directive, which
allows unsorted waste
incineration.
Action
on transport should also be beefed up, the parliament
said.
The voluntary agreement with carmakers to
reduce carbon dioxide
emissions should be revised
and extended to other vehicle types,
including heavy-duty
vehicles. Moreover, it was "highly regrettable"
that
more effort was not going into agricultural greenhouse
gas
emissions, the MEPs concluded.
Follow-up:
European parliament resolution
http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2002-0237+0+DOC+WORD+V0//EN&L=EN&LEVEL=3&NAV=S&LSTDOC=Y.
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with permission of Environment Daily
http://www.environmentdaily.com
-------------------------
More
doubt cast over Kyoto emission targets
Environment
Daily 1292, 23/09/02
-------------------------
OECD
countries will collectively fail to reduce carbon dioxide
(CO2)
emissions in line with targets in the Kyoto
protocol even if all
emission reduction policies
currently under consideration are
implemented, the
International energy agency (IEA) has warned in its
latest
World energy outlook report.
Even with all such
policies enacted, IEA concludes, OECD aggregate
emissions
would merely stabilise towards 2030. The Kyoto protocol,
in
contrast, requires industrialised countries to
achieve a 5.2%
contraction in all greenhouse gas
emissions from 1990 levels by
2008-12.
"If
governments wish to achieve larger or faster savings
in energy or
CO2 emissions, they will need to take
stronger measures to shape
long-term energy and environmental
outcomes," the report warns.
Under currently
envisaged policies the IEA sees the biggest reduction
opportunity
for CO2 emissions in power generation because of the
growth
of the renewables sector and reduced electricity
demand through greater
efficiency. Reductions beyond
a reference scenario assuming only
policies already
adopted by mid-2002, would be greatest in the EU (19%
by
2030), followed by Japan, Australia and New Zealand
(15%).
Under the reference scenario global primary
energy demand is projected
to increase by 1.7% a
year until 2030 - slightly down from the 2.1%
annual
increase over the last three decades. The document repeats
the
prediction made in its predecessor published
in 2000 that developing
countries will account for
two-thirds of the increase in demand (ED
21/11/00
http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=8792).
Follow-up:
2002 World energy
outlook highlights http://www.iea.org/newsroom/weo2002_highlights.pdf.
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with permission of Environment Daily
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-------------------------
Campaigners
hail "landmark" procurement ruling
Environment
Daily 1288, 17/09/02
-------------------------
Environmental
campaigners have hailed a European court decision
supporting
Helsinki city authority's purchase of a fleet of
low-pollution
buses as a "landmark" development in their
efforts to
green EU public procurement law. A coalition
of 13 groups is now
calling for a rewrite of draft
new procurement rules to take account of
the judgement.
In
a ruling delivered today, the court said that Helsinki
was
justified under EU law when it included the buses'
emission profile in
the criteria determining its
choice from a range offered by prospective
contractors.
EU legislation states that authorities must accept the
"economically
most advantageous" tender, often taken to be the
cheapest.
"This
decision supports our call that when authorities spend
taxpayers'
money, the economic benefit must reflect the wider public
interest
and not just that of the contracting authority alone,"
the
Coalition for green and social procurement said
today. Beatrix
Richards of WWF told Environment Daily
the decision would resonate
beyond Finland and have
"very important impact on the future
interpretation
of the directive".
Internal market ministers
are due to finalise their position on a
revision
of procurement law later this year. The campaigners
say that,
in a bid to squeeze out the scope for corruption
in public procurement,
they could make it even more
difficult to include environmental and
social considerations
in contracts (ED 24/05/02
http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=12211).
British
rapporteur MEP Stephen Hughes also welcomed the court's
ruling,
saying it "confirmed the validity" of the
European parliament's
approach to the laws.
The
case was referred to the court of justice after the
firm that
finished second in the competition to supply
the buses complained that
the city's move was unfair
and discriminatory. It claimed only one
company -
offering buses running on natural gas - was able to
fulfil
the environmental criteria.
The court
rejected this line, but added that there were conditions
on
the way environmental criteria could be applied.
They must be
"connected to the subject matter
of the contract", must not give
"unrestricted
freedom of choice" of tender, and must be explicitly
mentioned
in tender notices. The European Commission has previously
emphasised
this last point as a way of introducing green requirements
into
contracts
Follow-up: European Court of Justice
judgement in case C-513/99
http://www.curia.eu.int/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=en&Submit=Submit&docrequire=alldocs&numaff=c-513/99;
.
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with permission of Environment Daily
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-------------------------
Cost
of EU electricity disclosure "negligible"
Environment
Daily 1283, 10/09/02
-------------------------
Making
electricity supply companies detail energy sources and
environmental
impacts on their bills would cost less than half a euro
per
household per year, according to the first phase of
an EU-funded
project to investigate ways of greening
power supply.
Green MEP Claude Turmes endorsed
the findings today and pledged to
keep up pressure
on governments to include the requirement in a new
draft
electricity liberalisation directive. "We have
to make it easy
for the consumer to understand the
complex issue of the electricity
mix," said
the MEP, who is rapporteur on the law.
The draft
directive is currently passing through the EU legislative
mill.
In March the parliament voted for full disclosure of
energy
sources and associated impacts such as carbon
dioxide and particulate
emissions, and nuclear waste
generation. At the time, Europe's
electricity companies
described the move as "extreme and onerous"
(ED
14/03/02
http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=11782).
Ministers
are expected to reach a common position by December.
Mr
Turmes said the signs were they could adopt much
vaguer requirements
that would leave each member
state to implement its own disclosure
rules.
The
project "Consumer choice and carbon consciousness
for electricity"
is being funded through the
EU's Altener programme. Christof Timpe,
co-author
of a report on the first phase, said consumer electricity
labelling
had been introduced in most of the USA at a cost of
3.5
dollar cents annually. Multiplying this by ten
- to give a
conservative estimate for introducing
the obligation in Europe - still
yielded a cost that
was "nothing" compared to the price of the
electricity
itself.
Follow-up: European parliament http://www.europarl.eu.int/
and
the C4 project http://www.electricitylabels.com/.
Republished
with permission of Environment Daily
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-------------------------
Commission
proposes climate-linked road taxes
Environment Daily
1282, 09/09/02
-------------------------
The
EU should introduce a harmonised annual vehicle road
taxation
system based on engine carbon dioxide emissions
to help curb road
transport greenhouse gas emissions,
the European Commission said today.
The proposal
is the last of four measures intended to meet a long-term
EU
target of reducing average new car emissions to 120
grams per
kilometre (g/km) by 2010.
In a new
policy paper the Commission says it could table legislative
proposals
following a consultation exercise. Officials were at
pains to
point out that only the structure of road
tax would be affected. The
amounts levied would remain
a matter for national governments.
The Commission
points to the example of the UK, the only EU member
state
where annual road tax is linked to carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions.
Here, rates start at UK£100 (€159) for emissions
below
150g/km and rise in stages to UK£155
(€246) for emissions above
185g/km.
The
proposal complements an existing voluntary agreement
with the car
industry under which emissions are supposed
to fall to 140g/km by 2008.
It also builds on two
existing laws on monitoring and labelling of car
CO2
emissions. If the 120g/km target is reached, overall
car emissions
will drop slightly from 1995 levels
in absolute terms, the Commission
estimates.
A
study for the Commission by Danish consultants Cowi
found that a
differential CO2 tax on car use was
"essential" to produce significant
emission
reductions. Putting up existing taxes would reap only
small
emissions savings, it said. Moreover, meeting
the 120g/km target would
unavoidably mean either
a higher proportion of diesel cars or the
"downsizing"
of vehicle sales.
The Commission is also proposing
scrapping car registration taxes,
which it said were
unfair on EU citizens moving from country to
country.
And it urges member states to impose higher taxes on
company
cars. These are bigger than the average car
and therefore responsible
for a disproportionate
amount of emissions, it says. Officials said the
proposals
would not undermine a forthcoming Commission initiative
on
transport infrastructure charging.
Follow-up:
European Commission communication
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/cnc/2002/com2002_0431en01.pdf
(COM(2002)
431).
See also Cowi study
http://europa.eu.int/comm/taxation_customs/taxation/car_taxes/co2_cars_study_25-02-2002.pdf.
Republished
with permission of Environment Daily
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-------------------------
Fuel
consumption labels en route for Swiss cars
Environment
Daily 1281, 06/09/02
-------------------------
The
Swiss parliament yesterday agreed that an ordinance
requiring new
cars to carry a label classifying their
fuel consumption on a scale of
A to G would enter
into force on 1 October. Importers and car dealers
have
until 1 January 2003 to start using the new classification,
which
is already widely used on electrical appliances.
. The scheme is
designed to support an agreement
between Swiss government and car trade
to cut average
fuel consumption by 3% per year until 2008. See press
release