Taking the renewable lead

EU countries aim to show that it is possible to move away from a carbon-dependent lifestyle, writes Jennifer Rankin.

In March this year, just before the European Union’s 50th anniversary, the leaders of the 27 member states signed up to tough new targets to overhaul Europe’s unhealthy carbon-dependent lifestyle. At their spring European Council, they pledged that 20% of energy should come from renewable sources by 2020 and promised to cut emissions by 20% by 2020, with the promise of going to 30% if countries outside the EU joined in.

Although some observers viewed this as (at best) a mid-life crisis, European politicians insist that the Union is united over these goals. Humberto Rosa, the Portuguese secretary of state for the environment, says that through these 2020 targets the EU has demonstrated its leadership on climate change. In an interview with European Voice, he said: "The world will need at least reductions of 50%. The EU has a very clear message of leadership which is the most developed at the moment."

Some European countries want to go even further. The UK government has passed the world’s first law on climate change which imposes a legal obligation on the state to reduce emissions by 60% by 2050. In early December, Germany’s cabinet is expected to agree to cut emissions by 40% by 2020. The package of measures includes co-generation, energy saving taxes and (perhaps surprisingly for car-loving Germans) car taxes. It has the support of both parties in the grand coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, and German officials expect the various measures to come into force in 2008-09.

Not all EU countries are uniformly convinced that green is good. Notoriously, Václav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, has denounced environmentalism as the new communism. Rosa says that Klaus is "isolated even in his own country". Nonetheless, the leaders of other countries also have misgivings, even if their language is not as colourful as that of the Czech president. Currently six countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia and Latvia) are taking the European Commission to court to challenge their obligations under the EU’s emissions trading scheme. Latvia is seeking the right to emit twice as much carbon dioxide (CO2) as it has been permitted for 2008-12.

Commission officials say that every country is fighting over how an EU overall target of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% might be shared out. In the Commission’s environment department, ‘burden-sharing’ is now known more neutrally as ‘effort sharing’ and in more exalted moments as ‘opportunity sharing’, referring to the opportunities involved in moving to green technologies. But some countries remain worried that emissions cuts will harm competitiveness.

It is a worry that Portugal claims to understand. Rosa says that cuts in emissions are a challenge for economies that have some catching up to do. "We were departing from underdevelopment," he says, referring to Portugal. "It’s a challenge to foster efficiency and innovation, but we can already notice in some countries that there is a decoupling between economic growth and emissions." Referring to Portugal’s ambitious targets on renewables, which aim at producing 45% of the country’s electricity from renewable sources in 2010, he says: "We would not be in this situation if we did not have the stress, the challenge of the Kyoto commitments."

Whether or not the EU is united about the value of the "stress" of binding targets, they are here to stay. Officials in national governments reckon that the EU’s 2020 targets are a powerful commitment that will help the EU to break the ice in negotiations between developed and developing countries.

But the EU will not use its most powerful bargaining chip at Bali. The promise to upscale emissions cuts to 30% by 2020 is most likely to come into play when a final deal is hammered out, probably in Copenhagen in 2009. Rosa says it would be "lucky" if this came into force in 2008 and expects it will take longer. It is just one more sign that talks on a post-Kyoto deal will go to the wire.

EU countries aim to show that it is possible to move away from a carbon-dependent lifestyle, writes Jennifer Rankin.