ENVIRONMENT: Europe Goes for Bigger Emission Cuts

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Peter Dhondt

BRUSSELS, Mar 9 2007 (IPS) - European heads of state have agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2020.

The EU Spring Summit Mar. 8 and 9 also decided on a target of 20 percent generation of total primary energy from renewables like wind, solar and hydroelectric sources by 2020.

Environmental groups say the measures fall short of what is really needed.

German chancellor Angela Merkel, who is presiding for the first half of this year over the European Council, the final decision making body of the EU, called the “unilateral” cut “a massive step forward.”

Under the Kyoto Protocol, a global treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the EU is obliged to an 8 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2012. Negotiations about further cuts after 2012 have only just begun.

“The European Union is waking up to the threat of climate change,” said Jan Kowalzig, climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth Europe. “And we welcome the fact that the Union has decided upon binding measures. But the commitments are too low. We think a share of 25 percent for renewable energy by 2020 would have been reasonable.”

The aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent “is certainly not enough,” he said. “The EU admits itself that cutting emissions by at least 30 percent by 2020 is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change.”

Reaching an agreement about burden sharing and specific obligations – increasing energy efficiency, bio fuels and renewable energy – had appeared difficult during the negotiations. The main point of contention was a binding target for renewables.

France had proposed a “low carbon” target instead of the renewables target in order to include the “positive” contribution of nuclear energy in the equation. And Eastern European member states that are still dependent on coal as a source of energy did not want to be forced to invest heavily in expensive renewable energy sources.

Consensus was reached on “differentiated national overall targets” for renewables “taking account of different national starting points.”

The energy action plan adopted at the summit also recognises the contribution of nuclear energy in “meeting the growing concerns about safety of energy supply and carbon dioxide emissions reductions” – a concession to France and to BusinessEurope, a major business lobby that wants to increase the use of nuclear power in order to improve the competitiveness of energy intensive industries.

But the text stresses also that “nuclear safety and security” have to play an important role in the decision-making process.

The European leaders also agreed to a 10 percent minimum target on the use of bio fuels in transport by 2020.

The EU still has to decide on the exact burden sharing between the 27 EU member countries on the cut in greenhouse gas emissions. That is expected to take at least a year of negotiations.

For densely populated transit countries like Belgium and the Netherlands the new target is much harder to meet than for other countries. Member states in the east like Poland and the Czech Republic that are relatively poor and dependent on heavy industry and coal also face major problems.

By stepping up binding measures to rein in global warming, the European Union is hoping to engage other big polluters like the United States, China and India.

The EU offered to cut emissions by 30 percent “provided that other developed countries commit themselves to comparable emission reductions, and economically more advanced developing countries to contributing adequately.”

Friends of the Earth’s Kowalzig finds that a “wrong strategic choice; it is very unlikely that the U.S. will be matching European efforts.”

In scientific circles there is consensus that even higher cuts are needed to limit climate change. In a January paper outlining future paths for energy research, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, admitted that global emission of greenhouse gases eventually must be reduced by 50 percent in order to restrict global temperature increases to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius.

That would imply cuts from 60 to 80 percent by 2050 in Europe and other industrialised nations.