17
Dec 2008 - Strasbourg / Brussels – Today
the European Parliament accepted the compromise
agreement on climate change hammered out
last week by EU Heads of State and Government.
The deal is said to cut greenhouse gas emissions
by 20% by 2020 compared to 11000.
WWF says that, far from
being an example for the world, the package
is poisoned by the large amount of carbon
credits allowed from non-European countries
instead of focusing on actions within Europe.
“This is not quite the
third industrial revolution trumpeted when
proposals were presented at the beginning
of the year,” says Delia Villagrasa, Senior
Advisor to WWF.
“The 20% target sounds
nice in words, but is void because EU countries
are allowed to accomplish approximately
three quarters of the effort outside EU
borders, which translates into European
emission reduced by only 4 to 5% between
now and 2020”.
WWF is disappointed
by the last minute intervention of EU Heads
of State and Government to impose a minimal
“take or break” deal, which significantly
reduced possibilities for the European Parliament
to improve decisions.
The deal is clearly
not sufficient to confront the climate change
challenge, nor to comply with the EU’s stated
objective to keep global warming below 2
degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial
levels. On the contrary, if the entire world
behaved like the EU, the planet would be
well on its way to losing Greenland’s ice
sheet, with many cities threatened by sea
level rise.
Last week, at the UN
climate summit in Poznan, the EU urged all
industrialised nations to cut emissions
by 30% by 2020 below 11000 levels. “The
EU decision today is far below that ambition
and is cheating both the climate and the
people,” says Stephan Singer, Director of
the WWF’s Global Energy Programme.
WWF calls on European
countries to undertake maximum reductions
domestically and to not use external credits.
With strong regulations on energy efficiency
and renewable energy the 20% target is easily
achievable within the borders of Europe.
Notes to the editors:
The EU agreed to cut its greenhouse gas
emissions by 20% below 11000 levels, but
the reality is that the EU will have to
reduce its own domestic emissions by a mere
4-5% between now and 2020. Between 11000
and 2006, the EU had reduced its emissions
by about 8% (European Environment Agency,
2008) therefore there are about 12% emissions
cuts to be achieved by 2020.
The proposed reductions
between now and 2020 are split into the
Directive on Emissions Trading, covering
mainly large carbon emitters such as coal-fired
power stations and steel smelters, and the
Directive on the Effort Sharing, covering
all other sectors and all other greenhouse
gases. Both Directives allow for substantive
use of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
credits. The Effort Sharing Directive allows
CDM credits by up to 80% and the Emissions
Trading Directive by up to 50%. To sum up,
this will reduce the remaining effort to
be undertaken by the EU27 between now and
2020 to much less than half of the 12% emission
reductions.
Delia Villagrasa, Senior Advisor to WWF
+ More
Another fisheries commission
throws the science overboard
12 Dec 2008 - Pusan,
South Korea - The Western and Central Pacific
Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) today over-rode
the advice of its science committee and
rejected the recommendations of its chair
in choosing only minor reductions in catch
for bigeye and yellowfin tuna and watering
down or deferring most measures for achieving
reduced catches.
The decision comes just
a fortnight after the International Commission
for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT)
and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission
(IATTC) both also rejected their own scientists
pleas for significant cuts to catches in
the face of collapsing or falling tuna populations.
Measures adopted by
the WCPFC will see a catch reduction of
less than seven per cent for 2009 on WWF
estimations, well down on a recommendation
of a 30 percent cut which it was conceded
would still not have eliminated overfishing.
Among the discarded, delayed or reduced
measures were high seas fishing closures,
restrictions on gear types, and important
initiatives to better record and verify
catches and crack down on rampant illegal
fishing.
It is an especially
galling rebuff for WCPFC chair Glenn Hurry,
who earlier this year chaired the independent
review of ICCAT that found that body’s management
of the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery
“an international disgrace”. WWF commends
Mr Hurry, also Chief Executive Officer of
the Australian Fisheries Management Authority,
for his efforts worldwide to promote scientifically
based fisheries management.
“Disappearing, collapsing
and declining bluefin tuna fisheries world
wide for the high value sushi market are
increasing demand for bigeye and yellowfin
tuna,” said WWF’S Peter Trott, who attended
the Pusan meeting.
“What we are seeing
now is an international tragedy where the
failure of one fishery adds to the pressure
on others, while some fisheries nations
use their weight to subvert virtually the
entire international system for long term
sustainable fisheries management.”
WCPFC’s failures will
have severe impacts on Pacific island states
where foreign fishing fleets are having
catastrophic impacts on the viability of
their fishers and coastal communities, a
point underlined at the meeting when Papua
New Guinea announced its intention of denying
access to its waters for fishing vessels
from nations not subscribing to high seas
closures.
“In the equatorial Pacific
we can see the crash coming and a block
of major fishing nations seem determined
to fish their way into it,” said Trott.
“The implications are disastrous for the
small island communities in the region ,
where millions of people depend on healthy
tuna stocks for food and livelihoods.”
