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CLIMATE CHANGE
Polluters Dragging EU Back
By David Cronin
BRUSSELS, Jan 20, 2010 (IPS) - 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." (END)
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