04
Dec 2008 - Brussels, Belgium – European
leadership on climate change continued to
melt away today as EU Environment Ministers
meeting in Brussels appeared unable to inject
positive momentum into negotiations on Europe’s
flagship response to climate change – the
climate and energy package.
Environmental campaign
groups – Climate Action Network Europe,
Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace
and WWF – installed giant blocks of ice
outside the meeting to symbolise the impacts
of climate change, and will project messages
onto the Council building urging Ministers
to show leadership.
Negotiations between
the European Parliament and Council continue,
but EU Heads of State and Government have
effectively decreed that they alone will
decide on the final laws, leaving room for
a radical weakening of the legislation at
next week’s EU leaders’ summit.
CAN Europe, Friends
of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace and WWF
expressed their outrage at the blatant disregard
for the EU decision-making process, and
took this as a sign that European leaders
are preparing the ground to renege on their
promises of global climate leadership.
Environmental NGOs call
on the European Parliament to bring its
political weight to bear on Council and
defend its position on the climate legislation.
At today’s plenary session, Members of the
European Parliament underlined the importance
of the positions they voted to support in
October, such as the earmarking of auctioning
revenues for climate adaptation and mitigation
in developing countries, limiting access
to offset credits and the need for penalties
for those countries that do not achieve
their targets.
These positions reflect
the two key tests that environmental groups
have set for the climate and energy package:
whether the EU’s 2020 domestic reduction
target is consistent with the challenge
to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius
compared to pre-industrial levels, and whether
it will provide sufficient and binding financial
support for developing countries to cut
their emissions and adapt to the unavoidable
impacts of climate change.
At present, there is
no consensus between European leaders about
whether they will stick to the commitment
they made just 20 months ago to cut greenhouse
gas emissions by 30% by 2020 in the framework
of an international agreement. Even a weaker
20% target is now being undermined, as it
will be reached mostly through the purchasing
of external carbon credits from other countries.
EU climate “leadership”
was further questioned during international
climate negotiations in Poznan this week,
as the EU appeared unable to commit to deliver
financial support to developing countries,
in spite of the billions of euros which
its Member States should receive from the
sales of pollution permits under the EU
Emissions Trading Scheme.
On renewable energy,
where progress had been adequate so far,
the Council is now threatening to backtrack
by asking for review clauses which undermine
the 20% renewables target and hamper security
of investments needed to foster new technologies,
which are good for the environment and for
job creation.
Claudia Delpero, WWF
+ More
ECONNECT- restoring
the web of life
01 Dec 2008 - With more
than 30.000 species of animals and 13.000
plant species the biological diversity of
the Alps is utterly extraordinary. 20.000
invertebrates, 200 nesting bird, 80 mammals,
80 fish, 21 amphibians and 15 reptile species!
39% of the European flora amongst which
417 endemic plants are found only in the
Alps. However animals, and plants, need
to migrate between different habitats- particularly
in times of climate change. They are unable
to stop at borders and stay within the fixed
boundaries of protected areas so a new approach
to the problem is needed.
To connect habitats,
protected areas, and biodiversity hotspots
and to reduce the fragmentation of populations
is now universally recognized as the new
frontier for Alpine conservation. 16 partners
(five from Austria, five from Italy, three
from France, one from Germany, one from
Lichtenstein and one from Switzerland) joined
forces to support the ambitious and multidisciplinary
EU funded European Alpine Space Project.
The Econnect project started in September
2008 and will continue until August 2011
with a financial investment of over 3 million
euros. The first step of the project will
involve the standardization of geographical
data, identification of physical and legal
barriers and then outlining of on a common
methodology to pinpoint the corridors at
a pan-european level. To begin, with the
project will emphasize the implementation
of guidelines and good practices in a pilot
study thus forming a blueprint for action
across the Alpine range.
To achieve these aims
Econnect’s partnership includes national
and regional administrations, international
NGOs, research institutions and protected
areas. WWF Italy represents the European
Alpine Programme in this projects and will
be concentrating on all the communication
aspects of the Econect project.
(extract from WWF Italy website)
THE PARTNERS
Leader: University of
Veterinary Medicine Vienna; Research Institute
of Wildlife Ecology (FIWI) (A)
Other partners:
Ministero Ambiente, Italia (I)
Accademia Europe di Bolzano (I)
WWF Italia (I)
Parco Naturale Alpi Marittime (I)
Regione Autonoma Valle d’Aosta (I)
University of Innsbruck-Institute Ecology
(A) Umweltbundesamt GmbH (A) National Park
Gesäuse GmbH (A) National Park Höhe
Tauern (A) Council of Department of Isere
(F) Task Force of Protected Areas (F) Scientific
research centre CEMAGREF (F) National Park
Berchtesgaden (DE) CIPRA International (LI)
Swiss National Park (CH)
