EU summit and climate
European leaders can still salvage EU leadership on climate change
Ahead of this week's European Council, at which the EU position for the UN climate change talks will be at the top of the agenda, Green MEPs have held a press conference calling for EU leaders to step up the ambition of their climate policies. In this context, the Greens have also launched a fun, online communications tool (www.climatecircus.com ) to show how far the climate policies of EU and world leaders are from their rhetoric on climate change.
Commenting ahead of the EU summit, Green MEP Claude Turmes (Luxembourg) said:
"European leaders have the opportunity to reclaim EU climate leadership by agreeing on an ambitious EU negotiating position for the UN climate talks at this week's summit. We are just weeks away from the UN climate summit in Copenhagen and the talks are in crisis: a bold move by the EU could reinvigorate the negotiation process."
Commenting on the emissions reduction targets, UK Green MEP Caroline Lucas said:
"Simply 'copying and pasting' the dated, hazy EU pledge on emissions reductions will no longer cut it. Other countries are now pledging to go beyond the EU. If the EU wants to play a role in putting the UN talks back on track, it must now commit to an unequivocal and non-conditional reduction target of 30% by 2020 (from 1990 levels), with a promise to go beyond this. The EU goal is to limit global warming to below 2ºC: if it is at all serious about this, the EU must commit to a domestic reduction target of 40% by 2020 to play its fair share as part of a UN climate deal. It must also rule out the possibility of 'banking' hot air or surplus AAUs from the first commitment period of the Kyoto protocol."
Commenting on climate financing and carbon leakage, Green MEP Satu Hassi (Finland) said:
"EU leadership on climate financing is long overdue. It must now step up to the plate and adopt a position along the lines outlined by the European Parliament environment committee last week: providing at least 30bn per annum (by 2020), while specifying that this funding should be new, guaranteed and additional to existing overseas development aid, and not dependent on annual budgetary procedures in EU member states. One positive is a proposal and commitment for EU to contribute to 'fast start' climate financing in developing countries of 5-7 billion per year. Hopefully this remains in the final draft adopted by EU leaders.
"One final important issue on the agenda concerns 'carbon leakage' sectors under the emissions trading scheme. The Greens in the EP are trying to overturn the draft decision by the European Commission on the sectors due to benefit from exemptions. It is regrettable that the European Council is interfering at all in implementing measures under co-decision legislation. If they persist with this extraordinary interference, EU leaders must require that the list, if adopted, be promptly reviewed following an international climate agreement, with effect from 2013 and taking into account third country commitments and carbon efficiency. Failure to do so would send all the wrong signals to Copenhagen, negatively prejudging the outcome of the talks."
