European Union bargaining position at
Qatar talks undermined by having reached 20% target early and lack of agreed
plan
The European
Union will enter crucial global climate talks that begin next week with a
weakened bargaining position because it has already met its targets to cut
greenhouse gas emissions eight years ahead of time and has no plans to put more
ambitious cuts on the table.
Europe's
longstanding goal has been to cut emissions by 20% by 2020, compared to a 1990
baseline. But emissions are already below that level, according to analyses
verified by the European Environment Agency, the bloc's green watchdog. That
gives countries and companies little incentive to opt for further efforts to
cut greenhouse gases.
"We are
looking at potentially eight years of inaction, which, given the scientific
warnings on climate change, is not acceptable for the world's third largest
emitter," said Baroness Bryony Worthington, founder of the green thinktank
Sandbag, which analysed data from the EEA. "We have already decoupled
emissions from economic growth – emissions have been falling while economic
growth has increased."
On Monday
governments will gather in Doha, Qatar, for talks on a new global agreement on
climate change. Last year, ministers from nearly 200 countries agreed to draw
up a new treaty to be signed in 2015, and to come into force from 2020. If
successful, the new treaty will be the first global pact on climate change
since the 1997 Kyoto protocol. The annual rounds of international climate talks
have made little progress since Copenhagen in 2009 when world leaders including
Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel failed to reach a substantive
deal.
The UK has
been pushing hard for Europe to adopt a tougher climate target of a 30%
emissions cut by 2020, on the grounds that it will benefit not only the climate
but the economy. Europe is already on track to cut emissions by about 25% by
2020 just by implementing relatively straightforward efficiency measures,
according to analyses by the European Commission. Europe has the potential to
lead on various "clean" or low-carbon technologies, from wind power
to nuclear reactors, but investment has been hampered in some countries by
uncertainty on long-term support for such technologies.
The
spokesman for the EU's climate chief, Connie Hedegaard, told the Guardian that
the lack of a tougher target did not mean Europe would stand still. He said:
"Just because we have done so well on emissions, doesn't mean we are
holding back now. Europe is still moving forward on emissions and renewable –
we can exceed our own targets."
This week
the World Bank and others warned that the world is on track for warming of 6C
unless new policies are adopted. That level of climate change would result in
catastrophes including an increase in floods, droughts and heatwaves, fiercer
storms and hurricanes, as well as a decrease in agricultural productivity and
mass migration, according to predictions from scientists.
Europe is
the only major economic bloc backing a continuation of the Kyoto protocol
beyond the end of this year, when its main provisions expire. At Doha, the EU
is expected to sign up – along with Australia, Norway, Switzerland and a
handful of other countries – to a continuation of the Kyoto protocol beyond
2012. This would include emissions-cutting commitments from the EU in line with
its 20% target for 2020. But the US, Japan, Canada and major emerging economies
such as China, India and Brazil will not be covered by this continuation.
But EU
negotiators are unwilling to agree to a continuation of the Kyoto protocol
unless there are key concessions from those other big emitters. Last year, for
the first time in more than a decade of talks, the EU held out on its demands
for a global agreement that would include major developing countries, and won.
It means that China, the US, India and other big economies are now committed to
signing a new climate agreement in 2015. Until the last moment, negotiators from
other countries were predicting that the EU would back down.
