Back to the drawing-board

Disappointed with the deal struck in Copenhagen, the EU will have to decide quickly whether to continue its climate-change policy of leading by example, or to take a tougher approach.

The European Union must now rewrite the script for its climate-change policy in the wake of the disappointment of the UN’s Copenhagen summit. The original conception was that once the EU had agreed its own climate and energy laws, it would inspire others towards a global agreement on climate change at the end of 2009 and on to the sunlit uplands of a low-carbon economy of growth and jobs. But the script went wrong in Copenhagen, which for the EU was a failure (see box, next page).

In Copenhagen in the early hours of 19 December, a deal was struck that binds more countries in the world than ever before to action on climate change, but it fudges all the difficult questions. There was consensus that an increase in global temperature should be limited to less than 2°C, but not on how to achieve this aim. Countries could not agree on long-discussed targets, such as the goal to halve global emissions by 2050 or for rich countries to reduce them by 80%. Binding pledges on emissions reductions by 2020 are also missing. Instead, countries have until the end of January to file voluntary emission-reduction targets and actions to the United Nations. To add insult to injury, the EU was portrayed as a minor player in the negotiations (see next page).

So the EU is reviewing its climate diplomacy for 2010. Should the EU stick to its ‘lead-by-example’ policy, or take a tougher line against countries that do not commit themselves to strong action on climate change?

Strategy meeting

Next week (14-17 January) environment ministers meet in Seville to discuss strategy and to review a report that the Commission has been asked to produce. The looming UN deadline puts pressure on ministers to make this more than just a meeting to commiserate over Copenhagen.

Since 2007, the lead-by-example approach has been a promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, but by 30% if others make similar commitments. The bid was meant to entice big emitters to make ambitious matching offers. But in Copenhagen no one asked the EU to go to 30%, as European Commission President José Manuel Barroso noted in the final hours of the summit. This is unlikely to change.

Optimists, such as Andreas Carlgren, Sweden’s environment minister, will aim to extract more ambitious commitments from the US. But asking the US to produce a better offer – an approach the EU pursued throughout 2009 – will not be enough. US domestic legislation on climate change is unlikely to clear the Senate until springtime at the earliest and it is hard to imagine that the US will make a stronger offer just one month after it declined to do so in Copenhagen. And US officials are anyway convinced that their emission-reduction pledges are the same as the EU’s when measured against a 2050 goal to reduce emissions by 80%.

Unilateral action?

The disappointments of Copenhagen have re-ignited a debate about whether the EU should adopt the 30% target unilaterally. Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group, a group that represents governments and companies in favour of low-carbon growth, thinks that the EU should go to 30% because “the future is in clean technology and energy efficiency” and the 20% target is not enough to stimulate the green economy. BusinessEurope, an employers’ association, draws the opposite conclusion from Copenhagen and argues (as it has done all along) that the EU will damage its competitiveness by doing more than others.

François Godement at the European Council on Foreign Relations advises the EU to look beyond the 30% target and resort to economic leverage. “The EU has a position that is too pure… nowhere is its policy tied to economic interest.” He would like to see the EU offer incentives, such as deals on green technology, and consider disincentives such as carbon taxes (or equivalent measures) on imports.

Fact File

Falling short of EU ambition

õ The world should work to restrict global warming to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
The EU had hoped for targets to lock countries into this goal, but had also wanted a commitment to cut global emissions by 50% by 2050 and by 80%-95% for developed countries.
Click Here: Cheap FIJI Rugby Jerseyõ Countries should take action to reduce emissions in line with science. Emission reduction targets from developing countries and developing country efforts – “nationally appropriate mitigation actions” (NAMAs) – will be set out in an annexe to the document.
The EU wanted actions that would cut emissions by at least 25% by 2020 compared to 1990 – in line with the lower estimated range given by scientists through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But the pledges being discussed add up to a reduction of just 18%.
õ Least-developed countries and those most vulnerable to climate change should get funding “approaching $30 billion” (€21bn) between 2010 and 2012 to help them adapt to climate change.
The Copenhagen accord is very close to the EU goals on fast-track finance. The EU thinks that the least-developed countries should get €15bn-€21bn in 2010-12 and has promised to contribute €7.4bn ($10.2bn) of this total over three years.
õ Rich countries should mobilise to raise $100bn (€70bn) a year from public and private sources.
EU leaders agreed in October that the total bill could be around €100bn – €30bn more than the estimate in the UN accord.
õ Deadlines: Early drafts of the declaration referred to reaching a binding legal agreement “as soon as possible” and no later than December 2010 at the next big climate conference in Mexico City. But this was dropped from the final text. A review of the Copenhagen accord is planned for 2015, which will consider strengthening the goals to limit temperature rises to 1.5°C.
The EU wanted a clear timetable and a promise to deliver a legally binding treaty, but failed to get this. The 2015 review does, though, fit with the thinking of Stavros Dimas, the European commissioner for the environment.

In 2008, when the EU debated its climate and energy laws, France led the charge for “border adjustment measures”, tariffs or equivalent measures that penalise carbon-heavy imports. Ultimately, this was quashed by trade liberals in member states and (most of) the European Commission. The opposition has not gone away, so border tariffs are unlikely to become EU policy, but a skirmish over trade policy in 2010 is on the cards.

Adaptation

In the meantime, serious work will be needed on the more successful aspects of the Copenhagen accord. By the second quarter of the year, the Commission will have to make progress on deciding where and how it will spend the €2.4bn promised from the EU to the poorest countries in 2010 to help them start to adapt to climate change. More detailed work will also be needed on the Copenhagen accord’s urgent but vague call for a mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation.