12
Dec 2008 - Brussels, Belgium/Poznan, Poland:
Last year’s bold commitments on climate
were translated into feeble commitments
on action today as European leaders finalised
the more contentious aspects of the climate
and energy package, Europe’s headline response
to the climate change issue.
With support for a 30%
reduction in Europe’s emissions by 2020
now no more than a muted whisper, leading
NGOs including WWF called on the European
parliament to vote down the Effort Sharing
law that is a key outcome of the leaders’
summit.
The NGOs - Climate Action
Network Europe, Friends of the Earth Europe,
Greenpeace, Oxfam and WWF – said the law,
governing emissions not under Europe’s Emissions
Trading System (ETS), allowed up to two
thirds of required reductions to be met
by carbon credits purchased from projects
outside Europe.
“EU leaders will probably
trumpet the deal on climate change as a
great success, but in reality this is a
big failure in EU ambition,” said Delia
Villagrasa, Senior Advisor to WWF.
“Basically, Europe just
decided to off-set about two thirds of its
own greenhouse gas emissions, to have consumers
pay for emissions permits that polluting
companies get for free and to avoid supporting
poorer countries in the fight to climate
change. This is not quite the third industrial
revolution we were expecting,
“The result of this
race to the bottom is that Europe will reduce
its own greenhouses gas emissions significantly
less than the proclaimed 20% target by 2020.”
.
EU leaders also refused to introduce measures,
such as fines, to compel countries to meet
their national targets – a fundamental flaw,
which could prompt governments to think
that they can get away with inaction.
Green and development
groups are calling on the European Parliament
to support far greater European emission
reduction efforts and for national parliaments
to stop external credits being used to buy
the way out of real emission reduction.
Europe’s manufacturers
were also largely granted exemptions from
having to buy carbon permits under the ETS,
despite a lack of evidence that participation
in emissions trading would impact on the
international competitiveness.
Pressure from Poland
also ensured that the power sector largely
retained its exemptions from having to buy
permits at auction – and the scandalous
levels of windfall profit that came with
the allocation of high levels of free permits.
European environment
and development groups have long been agitating
for auctioning to become the norm for all
industries, a double benefit that would
combine reducing pollution with a funding
source for emissions abatement elsewhere
“This is a dark day
for European climate policy. European heads
of state and government have reneged on
their promises and turned their backs on
global efforts to fight climate change,”
Climate Action Network Europe, Friends of
the Earth Europe, Greenpeace, Oxfam and
WWF said in a joint statement today.
“Angela Merkel, Silvio
Berlusconi, Donald Tusk and Nicolas Sarkozy
should be ashamed. They have chosen the
private profits of polluting industry over
the will of European citizens, the future
of their children and the plight of millions
of people around the world. The Parliament
can and should amend the worst parts of
today’s deal.”
Europe’s backdown on
its climate leadership aspirations is in
contrast to the stronger action being advocated
by developing countries in UN climate negotiations
in Poznan, Poland, also due to conclude
today.
Developing nations complain
not only about the increasingly modest emissions
reductions targets of the developed world,
but also about the lack of real funds being
put into previous promises to help developing
countries mitigate rapidly growing emissions
and adapt to the unavoidable impacts of
climate change.
