Sunday, Oct 29, 2006
International
Europe falling far short of targets http://www.hindu.com/2006/10/29/stories/2006102902891200.htm
David Gow
Brussels: The European Union, self-styled global champion in the battle against climate change, is falling woefully short of its targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and will need to take radical measures to achieve them, new projections have shown.
The European Commission said that, based on current measures and policies, the emissions of the E.U.'s original 15 members will be just 0.6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010. The E.U.-15 countries are committed under the Kyoto protocol to an 8 per cent cut on 1990 levels by 2012.
The new figures predict that emissions in 2010 will actually be 0.3 per cent higher than they were in 2004. The commission's projections come ahead of Monday's (October 30) report by Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, which will warn that climate change could push the global economy into the worst recession in recent history.
Sir David King, British Government's chief scientific adviser, said this week that the Stern report showed that ``if no action is taken we will be faced with the kind of downturn that has not been seen since the great depression and two world wars.''
The findings published on Friday, based on national projections compiled by the staff of Stavros Dimas, the E.U. Environment Commissioner, are designed to spur European leaders into pressing for tougher targets in the second, post-2012 round of Kyoto at a U.N. conference on climate change in Nairobi early next month. The 25 Governments have set targets of up to 30 per cent cuts by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050, but not made them binding.
Mr. Dimas said, on unchanged policies, seven countries - Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain - would exceed their individual emission limits, which are binding under E.U. law. Even with extra measures, Spain is projected to exceed its 1990 emissions by 51.3 per cent in 2010.
Spain's annual economic growth is nearly 4 per cent, one of the highest rates in Western Europe, but it has suffered from extreme weather prompting greater use of fossil fuels. Ireland is projected to reach 30 per cent above 1990 levels by 2010, against an allowance of 13 per cent, and Portugal 42.7 per cent higher, with an allowance of 27 per cent.
Esther Bollendorff, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, said: ``This is dramatic as the projected 0.6 per cent is not even a tenth of the target. This sends a very weak signal about the E.U. ahead of the Nairobi conference.'' Mr. Dimas is to propose that civil aviation be brought within the E.U.'s CO2 emissions trading scheme and is considering legislation for car manufacturers.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
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