Europe should only push ahead with its planned cuts to carbon emissions if the rest of the world agrees to a global climate change deal at a crunch summit in Paris next year, according to the EU’s energy chief.
Next month, EU leaders are expected to sign off on a package of targets for 2030 that will include a 40% cut in Europe’ emissions, legally enforceable Europe-wide targets of a 27% market share of renewables, and 30% improvement in energy efficiency.
But Europe only accounts for around 10% of global emissions, and industry leaders have complained bitterly that emissions-cutting obligations will hurt their competitiveness if other regions do not follow suit.
“If there is no binding commitment from countries as India, Russia, Brazil, the US, China, Japan and South Korea, whose governments are responsible for some 70% of global emissions, I think it is not really smart to have a -40% target,” the EU’s outgoing energy commissioner, Gunther Oettinger, told an oil and gas conference in Brussels.
The 2030 package would be “an open question after Paris,” he added. “We should export cars and trucks and heavy goods. If we are too ambitious and others do not follow us we will have an export of production and more emissions outside the EU.”
Because the rules of the Kyoto protocol oblige CO2 cuts to be counted at the point of production and not use, academics estimate that 7% of Europe’s carbon emissions between 1990 and 2008 were simply outsourced to the developing world in the form of manufacturing imports.
Oettinger did not directly question those rules but noted that an aspirational bloc goal for industry to make up 20% of this continent’s GDP by 2020 – compared to 16% at present – was “not in our communications these days”.
The German commissioner has been an outspoken supporter of a ‘reindustrialisation’ strategy for Europe in the past, and may have a voice in the next commission as Jean-Claude Juncker’s proposed digital economy chief.
Earlier this year, he broke with the EU’s principle of collective responsibility to publicly question the agreed proposal for a 40% greenhouse gas emissions cut, saying that those who expected it to save the world were arrogant or stupid.
New data form the Global Carbon Project released on Sunday showed that Chinese carbon emissions per head of population had overtaken Europe’s for the first time. A record 36bn tonnes of carbon were emitted from all human sources in 2013, the project found.
Separately, Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s climate action commissioner, told the Guardian that Barack Obama must follow-up his address to a UN climate summit on Tuesday by taking action within the next six months.
“After his speech ... I think it will be very, very tough for the United States of America not to come up with something substantial for 2015,” she said.
theguardian.com
Next month, EU leaders are expected to sign off on a package of targets for 2030 that will include a 40% cut in Europe’ emissions, legally enforceable Europe-wide targets of a 27% market share of renewables, and 30% improvement in energy efficiency.
But Europe only accounts for around 10% of global emissions, and industry leaders have complained bitterly that emissions-cutting obligations will hurt their competitiveness if other regions do not follow suit.
“If there is no binding commitment from countries as India, Russia, Brazil, the US, China, Japan and South Korea, whose governments are responsible for some 70% of global emissions, I think it is not really smart to have a -40% target,” the EU’s outgoing energy commissioner, Gunther Oettinger, told an oil and gas conference in Brussels.
The 2030 package would be “an open question after Paris,” he added. “We should export cars and trucks and heavy goods. If we are too ambitious and others do not follow us we will have an export of production and more emissions outside the EU.”
Because the rules of the Kyoto protocol oblige CO2 cuts to be counted at the point of production and not use, academics estimate that 7% of Europe’s carbon emissions between 1990 and 2008 were simply outsourced to the developing world in the form of manufacturing imports.
Oettinger did not directly question those rules but noted that an aspirational bloc goal for industry to make up 20% of this continent’s GDP by 2020 – compared to 16% at present – was “not in our communications these days”.
The German commissioner has been an outspoken supporter of a ‘reindustrialisation’ strategy for Europe in the past, and may have a voice in the next commission as Jean-Claude Juncker’s proposed digital economy chief.
Earlier this year, he broke with the EU’s principle of collective responsibility to publicly question the agreed proposal for a 40% greenhouse gas emissions cut, saying that those who expected it to save the world were arrogant or stupid.
New data form the Global Carbon Project released on Sunday showed that Chinese carbon emissions per head of population had overtaken Europe’s for the first time. A record 36bn tonnes of carbon were emitted from all human sources in 2013, the project found.
Separately, Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s climate action commissioner, told the Guardian that Barack Obama must follow-up his address to a UN climate summit on Tuesday by taking action within the next six months.
“After his speech ... I think it will be very, very tough for the United States of America not to come up with something substantial for 2015,” she said.
theguardian.com
No comments:
Post a Comment