EUROPE’S LEADERSHIP role on climate change will be determined this week, but not in Poznan.
It will be decided in Brussels, where finance and energy ministers meet today in an effort to resolve outstanding differences on the EU’s climate and energy package.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy met central and eastern European leaders in Gdansk at the weekend but failed to persuade them to accept crucial elements of the package – notably auctioning permits for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants.
EU environment ministers also attempted to reach agreement on the package at a meeting in Brussels last week, and made some progress, but the issue of “carbon leakage” to countries not covered by limits on emissions remains to be resolved.
According to Oxfam International, the continuing stand-off showed that several EU member states – including Poland – were pursuing their own “narrow self interests [and] fundamentally undermining Europe’s ambition to credibly tackle climate change”.
Much of central and eastern Europe depends on carbon-intensive coal for electricity production, and Poland is known to be leading a rearguard action against the auctioning of carbon permits, saying this would lead to dramatic increases in electricity prices.
But Oxfam’s Elise Ford said auctioning permits under the European emissions trading scheme (ETS) would result in “only a minor increase” in electricity bills and represented “a unique opportunity for eastern European countries to invest in green technology”.
While the EU’s poorer member states needed support to curb their emissions, Ms Ford said this “must not undermine Europe’s overall responsibility to cut its emissions by at least 30 per cent by 2020 and help developing countries to tackle . . . climate change”.
“We need full auctioning across all ETS sectors from 2013 as the best way to incentivise emissions cuts. By shying away from its responsibilities, the EU would send the wrong signal to other countries now locked in international climate negotiations in Poznan.
“Poland and France, as president of the EU, hold the key to success in this week’s negotiations in Poznan,” she said.
“They can either leave the UN talks to flounder or set the course for a deal in Copenhagen [at the end of 2009] through a clear demonstration of leadership.”
One of those involved in the UN conference said the ongoing work on finalising the EU’s climate and energy package would “dominate the backdrop for Poznan this week” – especially if it’s left to the EU leaders to decide at their summit meeting in Brussels on Thursday.
Otherwise, the UN conference was making “predictably slow, but steady progress on a range of issues”, although there are the usual differences on mitigation measures (emissions cuts) and financing (help for poorer countries with adaptation and technology transfer).
