EU climate change deal a disaster

by Amy Judd | October 17, 2008 at 02:12 pm

569 views | 21 Recommendations | 14 comments

Europe's current climate change deal could be going down the drain as their ambitious green goals became yet another victim of the global financial crisis yesterday, when most EU countries said the plans to reduce their carbon footprint are now too expensive.

The EU dropped the plans to reduce the carbon dioxide footprint that was announced and welcomed so strongly 18 months ago.

Countries such as Itlay and Poland abandoned the deal, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy appealed to them all to stay in the deal.

But tempers flared at the quarterly European Council in Brussels, with Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, clearly furious at the pressure being applied. During a stand-up row behind the scenes, he told Mr Sarkozy that the targets would crucify Italian industry.

“Our businesses are in absolutely no position at the moment to absorb the costs of the regulations that have been proposed,” Mr Berlusconi said later.

Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, said: “We don’t say to the French that they have to close down their nuclear power industry and build windmills, and nobody can tell us the equivalent.”

In an extraordinary break with EU protocol, both leaders said that they did not have to stick to the deal because neither had been in office when it was signed by their predecessors in March 2007.

The eight countries have the voting power to form a blocking minority, should they choose to do so.

The original deal was to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, but now Sarkozy faces an uphill battle to hold the EU countries to thier pledges.
This occured while Britain increased their target to reduce greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050.
This new target will be introduced into the Climate Change Bill.

Mr Miliband said that tackling global warming was too important to be watered down even in a recession. “In tough economic times, some people will ask whether we should retreat from our climate change objectives,” he said. “In our view, it would be quite wrong to row back.”

In January, the EU presidency will pass to the Czech Republic, so Sarkozy will not have as much control over the goals of various EU countries.
The next few weeks will be interesting to see who tries to get out of the deals and how much they indeed want to scale back.

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Rhonda J Mangus

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 14:49 on October 17th, 2008

amyjudd, I like this story. It's good stuff.

SOLARLIFE

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 15:33 on October 17th, 2008

amyjudd, I like this story. It's wrong headline; The US climate approach is a disaster. Germany alone has 15% Renewable Electricty energy today, world leader. Poland is not important. The UK increased the goal to 80% C02 reduction by 2050. The green economy UK Britain world's first country, cutting green house gases 80% by 2050 investing $ 250 bn.

America and Canada can not downplay their responsabilities in the environment. As the US had to follow G. Browns bailout, the US follows Europe chemical laws and Europe's C02 laws, you will see, no way out.

Bart M

at 01:44 on October 18th, 2008

Solarlife said:

Poland is not important.

Thanks, man. Very kind. Very clever too if you consider the size of the country and how much of its power is from coal... I guess windmills on Outer Hebrides in UK look good on paper, but how much change do they make in global CO2 emissions? Very little if any.

gerrypopplestone

at 05:31 on November 10th, 2008

Well said! I think Bill Clinton did a great disservice to the US in not signing Kyoto and giving the US the impression that all it needed to do was to find new technical solutions, rather than cut down on oil consmption. In the UK we get bombarded with sduggestions for personal change all the time (irritatingly so at times, since I'm a public transport freak and have let my car licence lapse). Mind you, I do get free public transport!

Coconutbill

at 16:06 on October 17th, 2008

Coconutbill has contributed a photo to this story.

TomC

at 16:21 on October 17th, 2008

France is one of the largest users of nuclear power for electricity. I saw this driving from Chamonix to Lyon.

TomC has contributed a photo to this story.

Gidzy

at 19:28 on October 17th, 2008

I'd rather live near a wind farm, than a nuclear power plant.

Gidzy has contributed a photo to this story.

Tod Polson

at 19:47 on October 17th, 2008

While working in Denmark, I was impressed with the countries push to use wind power as a major source of energy despite what the rest of the EU has been doing. Becoming one of the leading wind power counties in the union. However, more recently I have read that the Danish government has set up newer laws that are less favorable for green energy.

Tod Polson has contributed a photo to this story.

Rosie_Thorn

at 07:38 on October 18th, 2008

Every method of producing power has its drawbacks. Now studies have been done that suggest wind farms cause harm to bats; so what appears to be a very good source of renewable energy is affecting local fauna which in turn will have a knock-on effect on the ecosystem of that area, particularly in the cases of extensive wind farms spread out over a large tract of land.

Barbara McPherson

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 09:50 on October 18th, 2008

amyjudd, I like this story. It's good stuff. It's a dilemma alright. Without money, it's hard to convert to greener solutions, but if we don't do it Mother N will force us to along with some pretty nasty punishments.