Tuesday, November 10, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
ENVIRONMENT-EU: Plans over Emissions Remain Mostly Invisible
Stefania Bianchi
- The European Union’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gases blamed for climate change looks uncertain after only a third of the member states met the deadline for presenting plans to cut emissions.
Only five of the 15 EU (European Union) member states – Austria, Finland, Denmark, Ireland and Germany – handed over their plans to the European Commission, the executive arm of the bloc, by the Mar. 31 deadline.
The European Commission remains confident that the 10 remaining countries will present their plans within a few weeks, allowing its emission-trading scheme to start as planned.
In a bid to reduce greenhouse gases, the EU is planning to launch the world’s first multinational emissions trading scheme by January 2005.
The scheme follows the EU’s promise of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent of 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. This is in accordance with the EU’s commitment to the Kyoto Protocol even if the agreement does not come into force.
Under the scheme companies will be able to buy and sell carbon dioxide emissions allowances. Each government would be given allowances, which could be traded on a market.
Those that exceed their allocations will be forced to buy extra allowances from ‘cleaner’ companies or face heavy fines. To the cleaner companies the sale can mean extra income.
The delay in handing over national records and proposals by most EU members is particularly embarrassing for the European Commission coming after a summit of EU leaders last week.
Heads of state identified slow implementation of new legislation to cut carbon dioxide emissions as one of the EU’s main problems, and promised to respect agreed deadlines in future. But there were indications that several countries are catching up soon.
“We know there are others in the pipeline – it’s a question of when they will arrive, and we know that all of them are on their way,” the Commission’s environment spokeswoman Ewa Hedlund told media representatives.
Governments that do not comply face a European Commission infringement letter – a warning that legal action is on the way.
The Commission will not know for certain until next week whether all 15 countries have complied with the deadline. If a country can prove its plan was sent before the deadline, it is likely to escape ‘punishment’.
“They’re all working on the plans, we’ve known that all the time,” Hedlund said. “The ones that have made them public, we know they’re very close,” she said, referring to Britain, Portugal and the Netherlands.
But some member states are expected to find it difficult to submit their plans even by next week.
Spain and Greece are struggling to meet the deadline because of recent elections. Italy seems to lack the necessary data to put together an emissions plan – even in draft form. France says it needs an extra month to produce anything.
Once plans are submitted there will still be a lot of work to do. The Commission will have to decide whether or not the plans are ambitious enough and fair. The Commission will decide to adopt or reject these national allocation plans by June 30.
Some 12,000 European steel factories, power plants, oil refineries, paper mills, and glass and cement installations will be offered emission quotas..
The European Environmental Bureau (EEB), a federation of non-government organisations (NGOs), urged member states to take firm action to do the necessary.
“If industry is not given significant caps on their emissions, what incentives will they have to reduce them?” said EEB secretary-general John Hontelez. “If this is the case, we doubt that any trading will happen at all.”
Hontelez welcomed the new emission trading system, but said that the EU and member states “must adopt further policies, such as environmental fiscal reform for tackling emissions from the other sectors.”
The ten new EU member states are expected to hand in their allocations plans by May 1 when they join the bloc.
Print
|
