EU sets deadline for climate change package

EU: EU leaders have set the end of this year as the deadline for wrapping tough negotiations on their ambitious climate change action plan, according to draft conclusions from their ongoing summit here.

“Comprehensive deliberations ... should result in an agreement on these proposals as a coherent package before the end of 2008,” according to the document made available ahead of summit’s second day Friday.

The plan aims to meet the 27-country European Union’s over-arching goal to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide — the main gas responsible for global warming — by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.

They EU member states have committed to go to 30 percent if other countries would match them.

To achieve that figure, EU states are obliged to make renewable energies, such as solar and wind power, the source of 20 percent of the total energy consumption across the bloc by 2020. The current level is just 6-7 percent.

Since EU leaders first set those targets a year ago, concerns have risen about the huge challenge and cost of meeting them, setting the stage for tough negotiations to finalise their strategy.

In their draft conclusions, EU leaders acknowledged the risk that, faced with high environmental standards, industry would leave Europe for countries with easier rules.

This scenario “needs to be analysed and addressed urgently,” they said.

In a last-minute change to their draft agreement the EU summiteers added a phrase to the text to ensure that the energy and climate change objectives are introduced in a way that avoids “excessive costs for member states”.

Among ideas that have been mooted are tariffs on imports from countries with low environmental standards and giving European firms free emissions quotas while making importers pay.

That idea is supported by France and Britain but was coolly received by some other member states.

EU members want to clinch a deal among themselves on fighting climate change this year so that Europe will be in a strong position to set the standard at international climate warming talks in Copenhagen late next year.

The European Commission plan unveiled in January sets targets for individual nations to help achieve the bloc’s goals, and would oblige industry to start paying for the gases emitted.

Brussels, Friday, AFP