Global IssuesCLIMATE CHANGE: Polluters Dragging EU Back
Barely a month after world leaders gathering in Copenhagen reached a weak accord on climate change, the European Union's top polluters are fighting a fresh battle to dissuade policy-makers from taking more robust action.
The European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC), one of the largest corporate interest groups in Brussels, has begun 2010 by urging the key EU institutions to refrain from setting more ambitious targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases than those already agreed.
Its efforts appear to have paid off. Spain, the current holder of the Union's rotating presidency, proposed Wednesday that the EU's negotiating position in follow-up work to the Copenhagen conference should be no different to that ahead of the event. This position committed the 27-strong bloc to lowering its emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and only to increase that target to 30 percent if other major industrial countries pledged similar cuts.
The Spanish proposal was made to a meeting of EU diplomats tasked with fleshing out the accord reached in Copenhagen. The agreement is slated for finalisation at the end of this month, by which time the world's governments are supposed to have formally declared their reduction commitments for the coming decade.
CEFIC says it is opposed to far-reaching unilateral measures by the EU as these would put energy-intensive firms in Europe at a competitive disadvantage to their peers elsewhere. 'For us reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not a beauty contest,' the group's climate specialist Philippe de Casablanca told IPS. 'It is not worth being the top region of the climate class if that example does not deliver significant reductions globally. The contest can't be won by one player but by all, working together.'
Environmentalists believe, however, that the EU should strive for a 30 percent reduction goal as a minimum, regardless of whether other big players in the global economy will emulate it. They contend that the Union's tactic of goading outsiders into following its agenda has not worked and that it is now time for it to lead by example.
Matthias Duwe, director of Climate Action Network Europe, said that the EU did not demonstrate genuine leadership in Copenhagen and 'seems to be making the same mistake again right now.
'It is sitting back and waiting for others, when there should be a renewed sense of urgency,' he added.
CEFIC, which represents some 29,000 firms, has been one of the most influential lobbying groups in shaping the EU's climate change strategy over the past few years. It has joined forces with representatives of other energy- guzzling sectors such as cement and steel makers to warn of a phenomenon dubbed 'carbon leakage', whereby companies would leave Europe for parts of the world with less rigorous controls on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) discharged into the atmosphere.
The concept was ridiculed by a 2008 study from Climate Strategies, a network of policy researchers, which found that the companies threatening to quit Europe tended to base their decisions on where to invest on factors other than environmental regulations. Yet CEFIC continued to invoke the concept to demand that its members be given free permits to pollute under the EU's emissions trading scheme, which issues licences for the amount of CO2 that industries may release.
The EU's reluctance to set tougher targets for itself comes despite an admission by one of its most senior officials that the measures envisaged by the Copenhagen accord do not correspond with those that most scientists deem necessary to avert a potentially catastrophic rise in global temperatures.
Olli Rehn, a member of the European Commission, said this week that the agreement 'falls badly short of our goal' to ensure that temperatures do not climb above two degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels. Rehn nonetheless added: 'The accord is better than no outcome at all, which would have been the worst case scenario.'
Spain's environment minister Elena Espinosa said it is vital that the EU's response to the Copenhagen agreement gives a boost to the 'intelligent' use of energy. 'We want to be the main motor for innovation and competitiveness,' she told members of the European Parliament Jan. 20.
But the Word Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) complained that the Union's lack of ambition is hampering it from championing the development of more ecologically friendly forms of technology than those currently in use. The WWF's Jason Anderson said that by sticking to its 20 percent reduction target, the EU would actually be slowing down the pace of CO2 cuts set in the past three years.
'By failing to take on a target of 30 percent or more we are foregoing massive energy savings that will improve Europe's economy and lead to the creation of new jobs in industries that have a long future,' said Anderson. 'The EU has always made its mark on the world stage by leading from the front. Shifting expectations to what other countries need to do before the EU moves further is not only lacking in influence, it means foregoing real benefits at home. There is no reason to hold Europe's economic future hostage to decisions made in Washington or Beijing.'
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service