Europe falling behind in Kyoto carbon targets
Email Print Normal font Large font Bruno Waterfield, Brussels
June 16, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/europe-falling-behind-in-kyoto-carbon-targets/2007/06/15/1181414548676.html
EUROPE is failing to keep its promise to cut carbon emissions, new
figures reveal.
The European Commission disclosed that since the Kyoto treaty targets
for cutting emissions were set in 1997, the EU has achieved a 2 per
cent reduction.
This means that at its average rate of reduction it would be
impossible to achieve its Kyoto obligations to reduce emissions by 8
per cent by 2012.
The European environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, reminded EU
leaders that they must act now before they can start to lecture the
rest of the world.
"It is clear that many member states need to accelerate their efforts
to limit emissions significantly if the EU is to meet its Kyoto
target," he said.
The picture varies dramatically between member states. Britain has
already exceeded its 2012 target to cut emissions by 12.5 per cent.
Spain, on the other hand, needs to cut its greenhouse emissions by as
much as 37 per cent to fulfil its share of meeting Europe's climate
change pledges.
The EU body has made a huge political investment in fighting climate
change, using the issue to take the moral high ground over the US,
China and developing countries.
At a summit in March, Europe's leaders called for the EU to make a 20
per cent cut in emissions by 2020, while urging a tougher post-Kyoto
deal to impose a 30 per cent cut.
Brussels officials are banking on the EU's much-vaunted two-year-old
Emissions Trading Scheme to make up the shortfall over the next few
years.
But the trading scheme in carbon emission credits could be doomed to
failure, environmentalists have warned.
A report by the World Wildlife Fund predicted that the ETS will "fail
to deliver" significant emissions cuts.
It said that while "the mechanism of carbon trading is sound in
principle, the first phase of the EU scheme has been seriously
undermined by weak political decisions".
Environmentalists have criticised the trading scheme — which only
covers 40 per cent of EU emissions, excluding areas such as aviation —
for not imposing strict enough carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas
limits on countries.
Only Britain, Finland, France and Sweden have reached or outstripped
their targets out of the 15 EU countries that signed up to the 8 per
cent Kyoto target in 1997.
Twelve new members joined in later years.
The figures reveal that many countries are failing to pull their
weight, leaving others, such as Britain and Germany, to take on the
extra burden.
Spain is falling seriously behind, with a shortfall that must be
picked up by others, because a 17 per cent increase in fossil fuel
electricity production has been coupled with a 33 per cent fall in
hydro-power plants due to reduced river levels.
"There are some countries that need to make major efforts. They will
need to look at how they generate power and make heat," Mr Dimas said.
--
There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling
the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their
cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
Celibacy in healthy human beings is a form of
insanity. -- Captain Compassion
"Civilization is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
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