French attempts to craft a global warming pact to make the EU a world leader in tackling climate change are gridlocked, with governments unable to agree on how to share the pain and costs of slashing greenhouse gases by 20 percent within 12 years.
A European summit last night in Brussels would fail to agree on the means to the end of meeting the EU’s ambitious targets, warned diplomats and officials.
The deal has to be struck by the end of the year for the package, which was agreed unanimously by European governments 18 months ago, to become European law.
But senior officials and diplomats doubt whether that will be possible despite the fanfare that accompanied the unveiling of the policy last year.
“The targets have been agreed and we have presented them all over the world,” said Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission chief. “There will be a real problem of credibility for Europe.”
He said: “Saving the planet is not an after-dinner drink, a digestif that you take or leave. Climate change does not disappear because of the financial crisis.”
Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president and current EU president, has been told that his proposals for tonight’s summit have no chance of being supported, with some of the 27 countries arguing that the financial crisis means that the Europeans can no longer afford the huge costs entailed.
“In this difficult situation, it’s only natural that governments become more defensive and prudent,” the European Commission chief said.
On Monday, Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister, told a meeting of his European counterparts that, with Europe heading into recession, the entire complex package should be renegotiated.
OPPOSITION
The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, opposed the Italian demands, arguing that if Europe was grappling with the credit crunch, it also was confronting a “resource crunch” that made the climate change package all the more urgent.
But while British ministers say they support the plan, they are also trying to water down some of its key provisions. The energy and climate change secretary, the foreign secretary’s brother, Ed Miliband, last week failed to get the rest of the EU to exempt the aviation sector from a central element of the climate change package — that which obliges Europe to obtain 20 percent of its energy mix from renewable sources by the 2020 deadline.
Sarkozy’s effort to build a consensus has already seen him scale back his ambitions, according to sources. But he has still encountered a wall of insuperable opposition on several fronts.
The heart of the plan is the so-called emissions trading scheme which forces European industries to buy permits to pollute, encouraging them to save money by becoming cleaner.
But amid furious objections, particularly from Germany, Sarkozy has proposed that especially energy-intensive industries such as the steel, aluminum and cement sectors be awarded their pollution permits for free to prevent them abandoning Europe and moving their business elsewhere. Britain and others reject the blanket exemption for these sectors.
However, there is also widespread concern that Europe will simply export jobs and businesses without making any difference to carbon dioxide emissions.
Meanwhile, environment ministers agreed on Tuesday that the world financial crisis must not halt efforts to combat global warming, the top UN climate official said.
Officials from the US, China, Canada, India, the EU and more than 30 other countries met for two days of informal talks in Warsaw before a climate conference in December.
“There was a very strong consensus that the current financial turmoil should not be an excuse to slow down action on climate change,” UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said after the talks.
“Many ministers said that addressing climate change can deliver important economic benefits that are important in the light of the current financial situation as well,” de Boer said.
GROUNDWORK
The discussions in Warsaw were aimed at laying the groundwork for a major UN climate change conference in December in Poznan that will include delegates from more than 190 countries. The conference will work out the details of a climate change accord to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
A similar debate also is under way in the EU, before its two-day summit was to begin yesterday. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has urged EU leaders to keep their promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions, despite worries that the economic slowdown will make it harder for governments and business to shoulder the extra costs.
The 27-nation bloc’s year-old deal would reduce emissions by 20 percent by 2020.
“Saving the planet does not disappear because of the financial crisis,” Barroso said in Belgium on Tuesday.
However, that EU package faces opposition from a number of members — including Poland — who fear it will curb their economic growth.
Polish Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki called the plan “unacceptable.” But he stressed that Poland, which is heavily dependent on coal for its energy needs, “does not fear” cutting emissions by 20 percent by 2020, saying that “we could even go beyond that level of emission reductions.”
But he said that a “slew of shortcomings” plagues the EU plan, which could be weeded out in further negotiations. He did not provide specifics.
Scientists say the emission of carbon and other greenhouse gases, mostly from fossil fuels, must peak within 10 to 15 years and then drop sharply to avoid potentially catastrophic changes in the climate.
The US rejected the Kyoto accord, arguing it would harm American business and that it made no comparable demands on emerging economies. China, India and other large developing countries refused to accept a binding arrangement that they said would limit development and poverty relief.
De Boer said a number of ministers at the Warsaw meeting pushed for industrialized nations to lead the way by setting specific targets for cutting emissions by 2020.
“That is the kind of clarity that the private sector also needs in terms of taking investment decisions in these difficult times,” he said.
Looking ahead to Poznan, de Boer said the December meetings there mark a “major shift” in climate change discussions as the process moves into “full negotiation.”
“There will be a draft negotiating text on the table ... containing different suggestions that have been brought forward by governments,” he said.
A final deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol is expected to be signed in Copenhagen next year.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
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