12
Dec 2008 - Brussels, Belgium/Poznan, Poland
– Today’s agreement by EU leaders on the
most contentious aspects of the EU’s planned
response to climate change, known as the
climate and energy package, has been condemned
as a failure by Climate Action Network Europe,
Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace,
Oxfam and WWF.
Green and development
groups described today’s deal on the Effort
Sharing law (which sets national emission
targets for sectors not included in the
EU’s emissions trading) as inconsistent
with the EU’s long-standing target of keeping
global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.
More specifically, EU
leaders only made a weak and ambiguous commitment
to the 30% reduction in EU emissions by
2020 they had trumpeted just last year.
Furthermore, today’s agreement would mean
that unacceptably high levels – around two
thirds - of these reductions could be met
by buying carbon credits from projects outside
EU borders. 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 therefore calling on the European
Parliament to show strong support for far
greater European emission reduction efforts
when it votes next week on effort sharing
and reject today’s deal on this law. European
citizens should express their outrage –
and ask their national parliaments to stop
external credits being used to buy the way
out of real emission reductions within Europe.
In discussions over
the future of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme
(ETS), the European manufacturing sector
was largely granted full exemption from
requirements to buy carbon permits. This
was done in the absence of any strong evidence
that such a requirement would impact on
the international competitiveness of these
industries. As a result of pressure mainly
coming from Poland, the polluting power
sector was also awarded exemptions from
having to pay for such permits in auctions,
in spite of the huge windfall profits companies
in the sector have reaped by passing on
the costs of permits they have so far received
for free to customers.
European environment
and development groups insist that auctioning
must become the norm for all industries
covered by the ETS when the system comes
up for review. Industries must pay if they
don not reduce their pollution and the revenues
generated must be used to fund tackling
climate change in developing countries and
in Europe.
Climate Action Network
Europe, Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace,
Oxfam and WWF said: “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.
“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.”
The EU also abjectly
failed to make binding commitments to provide
funds to help developing countries adapt
to the unavoidable impacts of climate change,
and to reduce the growth in their emissions
– a move which has threatened the collapse
of the ongoing UN climate negotiations in
Poland. Campaigners demand that EU leaders
immediately resume talks on financial commitments
to developing countries and produce an adequate,
binding proposal by March 2009. UN climate
talks urgently need the EU to show it is
willing to pay its fair share of the costs
of tackling climate change.
“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. 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,” said Delia Villagrasa,
Senior Advisor to WWF.
“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.”
“In discussions surrounding
the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Directive,
EU Heads of State failed to provide a signal
that heavily polluting power stations will
no longer be part of Europe’s future. They
did not accept to put a pollution limit
on fossil fuel power stations, a failure
particulary since the Emissions Trading
Scheme is too weak now to guarantee emissions
cuts in the power sector.”
Delia Villagrasa, Senior Advisor, WWF European
Policy Office
+ More
Feeble EU and group
of laggard countries stymie UN climate talks
– WWF
12 Dec 2008 - Poznan,
Poland – WWF says the disappointing lack
of progress at UN climate talks in Poznan
is a major missed opportunity towards reaching
a new global climate treaty in Copenhagen
in 2009. The stalemate was largely the result
of a collapse in European Union leadership
and obstructionism by other industrialized
countries taking the negotiations hostage.
“This was a moment in
time when real leaders would have stepped
up and taken the positions that would combat
the economic and climate crisis at the same
time,” said Kim Carstensen, Leader of the
WWF Global Climate Initiative. “Instead,
industrialized countries preached sermons
about the importance of climate protection
in the Poznan plenary while lacking or attacking
policies to make it happen at home – a serious
sign of climate hypocrisy.”
With the US largely
sidelined amid the transitioning presidential
administration, the hope for EU leadership
was dashed as Heads of States meeting in
Brussels watered down the block’s climate
package instead of moving clean energy development
center stage for invigorating the economy.
In contrast, developing countries arrived
in Poznan with a constructive spirit and
proposals to match, highlighted by China’s
impressive leadership and Mexico’s pledge
to cut 50% of emissions by 2050.
“A passive EU, in effect,
joined the US as the second lame duck in
the Poznan pond, while Canada, Japan, Russia,
Australia and Saudi Arabia openly undermined
progress”, Carstensen said. “These countries
need to get serious about greening their
economies and they need to provide know-how,
funding and technology to developing countries.
Otherwise, any prospects for a new global
climate treaty will remain dim.”
WWF said many opportunities
were wasted in Poznan, among them the inclusion
of crucial biodiversity issues and the rights
of indigenous peoples in the final text
on the issue of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation
and Degradation. It is likely that one positive
decision will be to put the Board of the
Adaptation Fund into operation, with the
hope that money can finally begin to flow
to support the poorest countries in their
efforts to stem dangerous climate impacts.
Governments managed
to at least make procedural decisions on
a work plan that will advance the UNFCCC
from just talking into negotiating. According
to that plan, industrialized countries are
expected to announce emission reduction
targets for 2020 in early 2009. WWF urged
rich nations to finally set these targets
and to aim at cuts of at least 25 to 40%
below 11000 levels. Together with financial
and technological support for developing
countries, such targets will be the signal
of solidarity that people all over the world
want to see.
“Despite the lack of
major steps forward in Poznan, the door
to a global climate treaty in Copenhagen
in 2009 remains open,” said Carstensen.
”But with an entire year lost to blocking
strategies and other maneuvers, time is
running out quickly. Leaders must now work
harder and faster to get the job done. It’s
not a problem of the UNFCCC process, but
one of political will among industrialized
countries.”
