Power plants are the single largest sources of carbon pollution in the United States. Credit: Bigstock

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Sep 20 2013 (IPS)

Regulators here have taken the first major step of President Barack Obama’s second term to scale back U.S. carbon emissions, proposing first-ever rules to dramatically reduce allowable greenhouse gas pollution for future power plants.

Both supporters and opponents of the new proposal, announced Friday by the Environmental Regulation Agency (EPA), say the regulations would make it far more difficult to build new coal-fired power plants in the United States. That has led to sharp criticism from business lobbyists and coal interests, who warn that the EPA is requiring the use of unfeasible technologies that will drive up energy costs and hurt jobs creation."Setting ambitious standards for existing power plants would be the single most important thing the administration can do on climate change." -- Rachel Cleetus of UCS

Under the new guidelines, future coal-fired power plants would need to cut their carbon dioxide emissions roughly in half, while standards for natural gas-fired plants would be similarly tightened. The eagerly anticipated regulations, a version of which was first floated last year, constitute the first major regulatory response to a landmark climate-focused speech President Obama gave in June.

At the time, the president warned that he would direct federal agencies to begin responding to climate change through regulatory and executive actions if the U.S. Congress were to remain unable to respond through legislative means.

“These proposed standards are the first uniform national limits on carbon pollution from new power plants,” the EPA’s head, Gina McCarthy, told reporters here Friday morning.

“Power plants are the single largest sources of carbon pollution. New power plants can minimise their carbon emissions by taking advantage of modern technologies. These technologies offer them a clear path forward, today and in the long term.”

The EPA will now open the proposal to public comments for two months. If the rule is then finalised – and it will almost certainly be subject to legal attack – officials hope to implement it by last next year.

In that case, the emissions rule would be among the first in the world.

“As far as I understand, using mandated emissions limits is unique” on a global level, Kyle Ash, a senior legislative representative for Greenpeace, an advocacy group, told IPS. “The E.U. countries are approaching the problem with a carbon trading system, China is now doing the same, and Australia has a carbon tax, at least for now.”

In the United States, power plants make up roughly a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. During his first term, President Obama oversaw major new regulations on the second-largest sector in this regard, automobiles and transport.

Yet while the EPA has in the past limited the amount of lead, mercury and arsenic that U.S. power plants can emit, the new rules would be the first to regulate carbon pollution.

“These standards are significant, and clearly show the EPA means business on carbon emissions,” Rachel Cleetus, an economist with the Climate and Energy Programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a research and advocacy group, told IPS.

“Yet while this is an important step forward, it’s not all the way there, and we’re looking forward eagerly to the next stage – dealing with current power plants. Setting ambitious standards for existing power plants would be the single most important thing the administration can do on climate change in the absence of action from Congress.”

Feasible technology

The new EPA proposal received immediate and widespread praise from environment groups, many lawmakers and even some large companies, even as it was pilloried by others.

“The new standards will reinforce what forward-looking companies already know: that climate change poses real financial risks and opportunities and that the future of the electric power sector depends on investing in cleaner technologies and more efficient resources – investments that create jobs and economic benefits,” 22 major U.S. companies, including the international consumer-goods company Unilever, wrote to President Obama on Friday.

Yet the rules are facing stiff opposition from many industry groups and most Republican lawmakers. Earlier this week the Senate Republican leadership offered a legislative proposal that would have barred the EPA from regulating power plant pollution levels, though this was rebuffed by Democrats.

“It is clear that the EPA is continuing to move forward with a strategy that will write off our huge, secure, affordable coal resources by essentially outlawing the construction of new coal plants,” Bruce Josten, a vice-president with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business lobby group, said Friday.

“The EPA … [has] released yet another major regulation that will hamper economic growth and job creation, and could lead to higher energy costs for American families and businesses.”

For power companies, a key complaint is that bringing coal-fired emissions down to mandated levels would require the use of new technologies collectively known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Critics point out that CCS, which is not yet being commercially used, has only been proven effective at federally funded test sites.

Yet researchers who have studied the EPA proposals and the current CCS market say such criticism is overblown.

“The EPA rulemaking documents, which are over 400 pages long, provide quite a detailed description of the state of CCS technology, and demonstrate that both private- and public-sector power companies feel sufficiently comfortable with this technology that they are already installing it on new plants,” Dave Hawkins, director of climate programmes at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based legal advocacy group, told reporters Friday.

“The industry is like a broken record on what it takes for the EPA to use technologies to set emissions limits. This goes back over 40 years … and in every instance when the government moved forward and set sensible standards, the industry demonstrated it could comply.”

Indeed, in the context of the recent rise in availability of cheap natural gas – which can result in far lower greenhouse gas emissions – coal advocates have focused on the prospect of “clean coal”. Two power plants using CCS technology are currently being built, while three others are being planned.

“This is a pretty weird reason for the industry to claim to be upset – no one actually expects new coal plants to be proposed,” Greenpeace’s Ash says. “What will actually have an impact will be the next rule, the carbon pollution standards for existing power plants – most likely, that’s what the industry is now trying to head off.”

On Friday, the EPA’s McCarthy announced that the proposal for limiting pollution from existing power plants will be offered by June of next year.

Cyclamens on sale at Home Depot. Credit: AWA/cc by 2.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Aug 14 2013 (IPS)

Major U.S. retailers are selling garden plants that are billed as “bee-friendly” but laced with pesticides known to be toxic to bees, according to a preliminary study, the first on the issue, released Wednesday.

Researchers with Friends of the Earth U.S. and the Pesticide Research Institute say that more than half of the nursery plants studied contained residues of “neonicotinoid” pesticides, a substance increasingly thought to be contributing to mass die-offs of global honey bee populations."It turns out these systemics have major risks that EPA did not fully understand. Now the agency is in a defensive stance … It will be difficult to reel these products back in, but it can be done.” -- Peter Jenkins of the Centre for Food Safety

“At the levels observed in our report, the high percentage of contaminated plants and concentrations suggest this problem is widespread,” Lisa Archer, a co-author of the new report and director of Friends of the Earth U.S.’s food and technology programme, told IPS.

“Unfortunately, too many home gardeners have likely become a source of exposure to pesticides that have been shown to harm, weaken and kill bees. It’s pretty shocking that consumers who may be purchasing these plants specifically to help bees could in fact be poisoning them.”

Many others may share that shock. Also on Wednesday, these groups delivered a petition signed by some 175,000 people to major retailers, urging them to stop selling neonicotinoid-treated plants.

Following on a half-decade of mysteriously bad news, last winter was one of the worst on record for U.S. commercial bee populations, with beekeepers reporting mortality rates of 40 to 90 percent and the collapse of nearly a third of hives. Normal “over-wintering” mortality rates should be around 10 to 20 percent, experts say.

In the United States, around a third of the food supply (and two-thirds of food crops) is dependent on bee pollination. Broader ecosystems arguably have even more to lose, with some 80 percent of flowering plants relying on bees for their survival.

Neonicotinoids (or “neonics”) are known as a systemic pesticide, water-soluble substances that can travel throughout a crop via its roots, remaining within the plant for multiple seasons. Today, neonics make up the most common class of pesticide in the world, including treatments for nearly all commercially sown grains in the United States.

Yet a growing body of scientific evidence is suggesting that low levels of exposure to neonics could be making bee populations more vulnerable to a host of other problems, including parasites and a changing climate, or even simply making it through the winter months.

Sublethal doses

While scientists have increasingly focused on the potential impact of the agricultural use of neonics, Wednesday’s study is the first to try to gauge the use of these substances in home and industrial ornamental gardens. The report notes that “many of the seedlings and plants sold in nurseries and garden stores across the U.S. have been pre-treated with neonicotinoids at much higher doses than are used on farms.”

The study sample was very small, just 13 plants known to be highly appealing to pollinators, and the researchers are calling for more extensive research. The plants were purchased at three nationwide retailers in three areas of the United States and then analysed by an independent laboratory.

More than half the plants sampled were found with some level of neonic concentration, ranging from 11 to 1,500 microgrammes per kilogramme. Some plants were found to be carrying two or even three types of neonics.

While the lower levels of that spectrum would likely not kill bees, Archer notes that smaller amounts could have significant impact.

“Adverse effects are definitely possible even with lesser amounts, including impacting on bees’ fertility and ability to navigate, as has been proven in lab settings previously,” she says.

“Bees already have enough problems as it is, so our hope with this study is that retailers can now take action and lead on this issue, to ensure that consumers at least have access to neonic-free plants.”

Archer is unaware of the extent of knowledge within the nursery retail industry about the potential impact of neonics on bee populations, but says she’s willing to give companies the benefit of the doubt that they were unaware of the issue to date.

A spokesperson for Home Depot, a home services giant that operates some 2,250 stores, told IPS that his office hadn’t yet reviewed the new study. “But we certainly appreciate the importance of the bee population,” he said, “so we’ll be reaching out to the study groups to learn more.”

Lowe’s, another large-scale retailer included in the new study, did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

Defensive regulators

Last month, U.S. lawmakers introduced national legislation aimed at taking emergency interim measures to safeguard U.S. beehives, after some 50,000 honey bees reportedly died following an ornamental application of neonic pesticide in a business parking lot. If passed, the bill would halt the use of neonics until the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – the body that approved their use in the first place – undertakes a scheduled reappraisal of the pesticides in 2018.

“Twelve years ago, EPA became so enamoured with systemic insecticides that they approved hundreds of these products,” Peter Jenkins, an attorney with the Centre for Food Safety, an advocacy group that sued the EPA over the issue this spring, told IPS.

“But it turns out these systemics have major risks that EPA did not fully understand. Now the agency is in a defensive stance … It will be difficult to reel these products back in, but it can be done.”

While some suggest that conservative pushback could doom the currently pending pollinator legislation, Jenkins points to recent evidence of notably broad bipartisan support for such action.

A related provision would have passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives earlier this year as part of a larger bill that ultimately failed, he says. In addition, the Republican-controlled House committee that oversees financial appropriations for the EPA is currently urging the agency to take related regulatory action.

To a great extent, global precedent on neonic use is currently coming from Europe. The European Union is slated to pass a two-year moratorium on the use of three types of neonics, pending additional research, while the majority of home garden retailers in the United Kingdom have already stopped selling neonic-treated plants.

“If retailers can do this in the U.K., they can do it here,” Friends of the Earth U.S.’s Archer says. “According to the American Gardening Association, more than 80 percent of consumers are interested in purchasing environmentally friendly products, so we’re hoping retailers will see this as an opportunity to be leaders in pollinator protection.”

For the first time, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has publicly released a draft plan on how the department’s programmes will adapt to global warming, in a move that could lay additional groundwork for important new emissions rulemaking the agency may announce in coming months.

Obama is being urged to set new carbon standards on U.S. power plants, cutting their greenhouse gas emissions by at least a quarter by 2020. Credit: public domain

The EPA is tasked with oversight of the health of both human communities and natural systems, mandated with creating and implementing standards relating to air and water quality, among others. As such, the agency has emerged at the frontlines of Washington’s attempts to push through stricter climate-related regulations while circumventing the U.S. Congress, which remains fractious and politicised over the reality of human responsibility for global warming.

“We’re happy the government is finally waking up to the cold, hard reality of climate change and seeing its impacts,” Elizabeth Perera, a Washington climate policy expert with the Sierra Club, an environment advocacy group, told IPS.

“The more real and specific that you can talk about these impacts, the more we think there will be a fire lit under the government to do something on the action side. On climate change, you have to remember, we’re talking about major costs across all parts of the government and economy.”

The draft plan comes in response to a government-wide requirement, mandated through executive order in 2009 by President Barack Obama, in which this year all U.S. government agencies are required to file climate change-related adaptation plans with a newly created office within the White House, the Council on Environmental Quality.

Each of these plans will now be open to public comment for two months, although the plan by the EPA is expected to garner some of the most significant public scrutiny. According to a five-year plan, adaptation planning is to be integrated across the EPA’s operations by 2015.

Environmental justice

The draft plan, although extending to 55 pages, is less a detailed plan of attack than a framework. Yet this framework does cover the EPA’s critical responsibility of writing regulations, and thus could lay down a few markers for what some observers are assuming will be a more aggressive President Obama in his second term.

During his second inaugural address, in late January, the president surprised many by devoting more time – and more forceful rhetoric – to climate change than to nearly any other policy area, despite the issue having received lower priority than several others during his first term.

Notwithstanding the vicious debate and policy paralysis that continues to characterise Washington’s actions on climate change, the EPA clarifies immediately how it plans to approach the issue.

“We live in a world in which the climate is changing,” the draft plan states in its first line (in accordance with a 2011 policy statement). “Changes in climate have occurred since the formation of the planet. But humans are now influencing Earth’s climate and causing it to change in unprecedented ways.”

The EPA’s focus is, of course, primarily on the United States. It notes that during the past half-century average temperatures in the country have been pushed up by more than two degrees Fahrenheit, precipitation has increased by around five percent, and sea level has risen by up to eight inches.

Yet it also notes the broader implications of a warming planet. “Around the world all countries are expected to feel the effects of climate change, although the specific impacts will vary,” the draft states. “The impacts, however, are expected to disproportionately affect developing countries and those already at risk.”

Indeed, even in the United States, poorer and marginalised communities are often at greater risk, the agency warns, recognising that “The impacts of climate change raise environmental justice issues … focus(ing) on the health of and environmental conditions affecting minority, low-income, and indigenous populations.”

Executive authority

As outlined by federal requirements, the draft plan focuses on adaptation to global climate change, rather than on new planning for how to combat or mitigate global warming. Nonetheless, the document makes clear that the realities of climate change – both those that are now certain and those that are yet unclear – will in coming years inform nearly all processes within the EPA, including the writing of new regulations.

Further, the agency’s positioning on the issue of adaptation will almost inevitably be coloured by its potentially central role in the U.S. administration’s plans for combating climate change more broadly over President Obama’s second term.

While the president’s only major legislative effort on the issue – a market-based “emissions trading” bill – failed to make it through the U.S Congress in 2009, many environmentalists today quietly point to noteworthy gains made without Congress’s participation, particularly on new fuel-efficiency requirements the EPA oversaw last year.

With few power dynamics changed in the Congress following the November national election (Democrats continue to hold the Senate while a smaller Republican majority remains in the House), many environment activists are now calling on the president to step up the use of his executive authority to push through rule changes with potentially far-reaching impact.

Officials close to Obama have likewise supported such options, with one noting last week that the administration will “continue to look for tools, administrative actions that we can take that don’t require Congress”.

“This is something within the government’s purview – there are so many aspects they can address for which we don’t need actual legislation,” Sierra Club’s Perera says. “That has to be why they’re moving forward so quickly right now.”

In an open letter sent last month to President Obama, nearly 70 environmental groups called on the White House to “Use your executive authority.” The letter continued: “You have the authority under existing law to achieve urgently needed reductions in the carbon pollution that is disrupting our climate and damaging our health.”

In particular, the signees are urging the president to set new carbon standards on U.S. power plants, cutting their greenhouse gas emissions by at least a quarter by 2020. Such a responsibility would fall to the EPA, which could make a related announcement as soon as April.

Against that prospect, Republican politicians and some business leaders have already begun pushing back. Referring to the agency as “overly zealous”, Representative Ed Whitfield warned last week that “If (the EPA) starts trying to do this with existing plants, they’re going to have a real battle.”

Further, with the EPA’s head having recently stepped down, Senate Republicans are currently vowing to use confirmation hearings for a new agency chief as an opportunity demand a weaker regulatory approach.

Biofuels are tested aboard the USS Nimitz. Credit: US Navy

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Feb 1 2013 (IPS)

New biofuel requirements proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are being met with concern by a spectrum of interest groups from environmentalists to the oil industry, with some warning that a gap between the proposal and existing law could force the government to draw on food-based alternative fuels.

The announcement, which opens a 45-day feedback period, sets standards under the country’s landmark Renewable Fuel Standard programme. That 2007 legislation established long-term goals for alternative fuel use – 36 billion gallons a year by 2022 – for which the EPA is mandated to set yearly requirements for the country’s petroleum importers and refiners.

The new requirement proposals offer standards for three types of alternative fuels: biomass-based diesel made from various vegetable or even animal oils (1.28 billion gallons); “advanced” biofuels for use, for instance, in planes or ships (2.75 billion gallons); and “cellulosic” biofuels made from non-food items such as inedible grasses (14 million gallons).

This last type is of particular importance, given that legislators in 2007 specifically aimed to preclude any competition between the productions of biomass for alternative fuels versus food. Yet while the proposals do incrementally increase the usage levels across this range of fuels by about 1.4 billion gallons more than were stipulated in 2012, the level for cellulosic fuel is far lower than the original legislation stipulates as a signpost for this year.

By 2013, the 2007 bill states, the U.S. was to be using a billion gallons of cellulosic biofuel. The EPA’s announcement of just 14 million gallons would thus leave a massive shortfall – and even this lower figure could be a stretch.

The problem is that U.S. production capability for cellulosic biofuel has yet to come anywhere near satisfying the legally required demand. Production capacity was particularly hampered by the timing of the 2007 bill, which came immediately before the massive economic contraction of 2008, during which investments for the 100-million-dollar refineries required for this type of operation dried up.

Although investments in cellulosic biofuel refining have now picked up, the market has yet to achieve commercial viability. Last week, a court voided previous EPA requirements for this type of biofuel (for 2010 and 2011) because the country had produced none of the product during those years, and just 21,000 gallons last year.

While the court says that the EPA’s requirements were baseless, agency officials say the proposed standards constitute a “reasonable representation of expected production” by a handful of start-up refineries. The group that brought the court case, the American Petroleum Institute (API), an industry lobby group, has responded scornfully.

“The court recognized the absurdity of fining companies for failing to use a nonexistent biofuel, but EPA wants to nearly double the mandate for the fuel in 2013,” Bob Greco, an API official, said in a statement. He also suggested that the agency “needs a serious reality check” and that “its renewable fuels program is unworkable and must be scrapped.”

Still, the EPA’s new moves have been strongly backed by the biofuels industry.

“The cellulosic biofuels industry is just breaking through at commercial scale,” Brooke Coleman, executive director of the Advanced Ethanol Council, a trade group, said in a statement, noting that the EPA had gotten the related standards “just right”. “The volume standards proposed … will continue to provide advanced biofuel investors and innovators with a predictable and durable path forward in that effort.”

986 million gallons needed

Currently, two cellulosic refineries are operating in the United States, with at least two more under construction. As such, even if the current forecasts were to be overly optimistic – and analysis by several advocates suggests that the EPA’s estimates may be conservative – the market for this type of biofuel looks set to achieve commercial viability in the next year or two.

Yet some are worried that the way in which the United States makes up the shortfall in its cellulosic biofuel stocks could still have significant impact. This gap is not only an issue with regard to the 14 million gallons that the EPA has now proposed, but more importantly the billion gallons required by the original 2007 legislation.

This means that at least 986 million gallons of alternative fuel will still need to be accounted for this year.

“Because these mandates are ‘nested’, that 986 million gallons would turn into a mandate for biodiesel, which in turn could come from sugarcane, vegetable oil, etc.,” Jeremy Martin, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Clean Vehicles Programme, told IPS.

“When you look at this year’s market, look at the availability of vegetable oil and sugarcane ethanol – those markets are tight, and so we don’t think it would be a good idea to expand those mandates faster.”

While Martin notes that he fully supports the broad aims of the EPA’s moves on alternative fuels, he says that just because cellulosic biofuel production is currently behind schedule “doesn’t mean we need to accelerate mandates that threaten our environment and our food supplies.”

Further, if the EPA decided to move in this direction, it might not be only the U.S. environment and food supplies that are threatened.

“The economists that model this type of thing initially thought that the remainder would be made up mostly through sugarcane, but now it looks like it might be diesel. Both of those, however, particularly the sugarcane ethanol, would almost certainly be imported,” Martin says.

“We’ve looked at the resources available for cellulosic fuel, and the United States has substantial resources. But that’s in contrast with biomass diesel and sugarcane, which are in short supply and in competition with food production.”

Further, one of the fastest-growing and cheapest sources of vegetable oil (for biomass diesel) is palm oil, the production of which in recent decades has been blamed for the clear-cutting and monoculturing of at least 15 million hectares worldwide, according to the United Nations in 2011.

While the EPA has made a preliminary ruling suggesting that palm oil may not environmentally friendly enough for use under the renewable fuels mandates, that ruling is not yet final.

“As you expand these standards, independent of whether you use soybeans, corn or other materials, at the end of day if there is an inadequate supply more will have to come from overseas,” Martin says. “And we think that palm oil will be the new supplier of vegetable oil into the world market.”

Caught between a proverbial rock and a hard place, African and Pacific countries are still unsure whether they should follow the lead of their Caribbean counterparts and sign a wide-ranging Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe.

African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) ministers are meeting here ahead of their joint Council of Ministers meeting with Europe on Thursday and Friday. However, they are still far from completing the negotiations that would allow them to participate in the accord that Europe is using as its main vehicle for trade and other assistance.

Namibia is looking to diversify its beef exports to countries in the global South in order to lessen its dependency on the lucrative EU market. Credit: Servaas van den Bosch/IPS

In 2008, the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM), comprising the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Dominican Republic, signed the accord. Ironically, Guyana, which had been reluctant to sign until it received certain assurances, is the only one so far to have ratified the EPA.

“At the time of signing Guyana was able to secure a joint declaration which is appended to the CARIFORUM-EPA indicating that within a five-year period there will be a review of the implementation process to examine to what extent it is adversely affecting our development strategies and this is something… we hope will be incorporated in the other regions as they work to conclude their agreements,” the country’s ambassador to Brussels Dr. P.I. Gomes told IPS.

In its report to the conference here, the Pacific region has described the negotiations with Europe that began in 2004 as “a long and challenging process”.

Tonga’s Labour, Commerce and Industries Minister Isieli Pulu, the lead spokesman for the Pacific grouping, said that while two Pacific states have signed an interim EPA – mainly to avoid market access restrictions – it was always understood that the interim accord “would be a stepping stone towards a comprehensive EPA”.

The Cotonou Agreement signed in 2000 puts in place a cooperation framework aimed at liberalising trade between both the ACP and EU, and also specified that a new World Trade Organization (WTO) compatible regime or an EPA must be agreed by the end of 2007.

Pulu said that the Pacific countries have reaffirmed this commitment and their leaders have mandated “that we continue to negotiate a comprehensive EPA as single region with the European Union which should be concluded by 2012.

But he said while this commitment has been made, the Pacific group wants an EPA “based on principles and objectives enshrined in the Cotonou Agreement” and it “must go far beyond market access arrangements and constitute a trade and development cooperation agreement that will form the basis for the elaboration of a true, strengthened and strategic partnership over time between the Pacific ACP region and the European Union”.

Pulu has accused Europe of “stalling”, noting that it “has continually deferred meeting with the Pacific region for a formal negotiating session since 2009.

“Furthermore, they have not responded to the Pacific’s proposals and market access offers submitted in July 2011. This has seriously threatened the possibility of concluding the negotiations on a comprehensive EPA as called for by the Pacific ACP leaders. Instead, the European Commission has been coercing the Pacific ACP region to accept the interim EPA,” Pulu told the meeting.

He said the delay has reduced the alternatives for several Pacific countries wishing to conclude “a beneficial trading arrangement” with Europe given the implications of the commission’s proposals to amend EU market access regulations.

“In the Pacific region, Fiji could be forced to ratify the interim EPA if the region is not able to satisfactorily conclude a comprehensive EPA by 2014. Major industries in Fiji could face disruption and could collapse as they are dependent on duty-free and quota-free access to the European market,” he said.

For their part, the African countries, grouped under several bodies, have also expressed reservations.

Central Africa, for instance, has indicated that three countries – Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon – have specific concerns regarding cooperation with the European Union.

Cameroon, which signed the “Stepping Stone” agreement in 2009 as proposed by Europe to safeguard market access to the European Union, but has not yet ratified it, has indicated it would be penalised by having the European market access benefits withdrawn by January 2014.

The decision to withdraw the regulations applies to all countries signatory to interim EPA agreements that have not yet ratified them, ACP officials told IPS.

In the case of Equatorial Guinea, it is faced with financial restrictions on some of the regional projects under the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) for having failed to fully ratify the first revised Cotonou Agreement of June 2005.

Because of an increase in its resources, that country will soon graduate from LDC (least developed country) status to middle income country status, according to U.N. classification, the ACP ministers meeting here was informed.

Gabon, already classified as an “upper-range middle income country”, could see its General System of Preferences (GSP) regime revoked, with Central Africa noting that “in fact the GSP, which is a non-negotiable scheme, continues to be applied at the discretion of the European side”.

The East African Community, which includes countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Somalia, say they have noted “with great concern that our partners seem to be imposing unrealistic deadlines on the conclusions of the negotiation talks and have gone ahead to propose an amendment to EC market access regulations that would deny a group of 18 countries preferential market access to the EU with effect from Jan. 1, 2014 if they have not ratified the EPAs.

“We view this move as not only putting undue pressure on the ongoing EPA negotiation process and therefore the possibility of not concluding an agreement capable of meeting the intended objectives but also an affront to our regional integration,” the EAC added.

The 16 West African countries and those comprising the East South Africa (ESA) grouping have also voiced similar concerns.

The West African countries, which include Ghana and Nigeria, say given the EU’s position of excluding countries that have concluded EPA agreements, but have not yet ratified them, the region must consider “alternative solutions”.