Emission goals cloud climate deal

Date: 30/10/1997

By Simon Coss

THE European Commission admitted this week that EU negotiators at December's international climate change conference in Kyoto may agree to lower cuts in greenhouse gas emissions than the Union itself wants.

But officials once again rejected the notion that any deal was better than no deal at all.

Following US President Bill Clinton's announcement that - contrary to commitments made at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio - Washington is only prepared to stabilise carbon dioxide emissions between 2008 and 2012, the Commission appears to have conceded that it may not be possible to reach agreement on the Union's own much tougher target of cutting emissions to 15&percent; below 1990 levels by 2010.

“We are not going to say in advance that we will reduce to 15&percent; in all circumstances,” said Peter Jorgensen, spokesman for Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard. “People do not always go into negotiations expecting to get everything they ask for.”

But Jorgensen would not say exactly how much ground the EU might be prepared to give at the forthcoming conference, saying the Union's final position would be agreed at the meeting.

The Commission has already indicated that if it looks as though Kyoto will produce a legally binding deal which falls significantly short of the political goals set out in Rio, then the EU will not sign up. The 1992 conference pledged to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.

“There is a bottom line to what is acceptable. We do not buy the line that any deal is better than no deal,” said Jorgensen.

But the institution has not overtly said whether it will push ahead anyway and introduce tougher rules if it is not happy with what is finally agreed in Japan. “The EU will not make any unilateral commitments, but it has and will continue to adopt a sound and healthy environmental policy,” said Jorgensen.

Europe's business community has already warned against the Union going further than the rest of the developed world. “It is essential for member states of the EU to refrain from taking unilateral measures which would directly or indirectly weaken Europe's competitiveness,” said Daniel Cloquet of the European employers' federation UNICE.

As part of her ongoing campaign to persuade the US to adopt a tougher line on emissions, Bjerregaard will travel to Washington next Tuesday (4 November) for a meeting with senior state department officials Stuart Eizenstat and Timothy Wirth.

“My Commissioner isn't going to sit idly back and wait for the problem to solve itself. It won't,” said Jorgensen shortly before the visit was announced.

The Commissioner will be accompanied on her mission by environment ministers from the EU 'troika': the current presidency holder Luxembourg, its Dutch predecessor and its British successor.

Bjerregaard is likely to shed more light on the EU's final negotiating stance in Kyoto when she speaks at a European Voice conference on climate change which is to be held in Brussels next Thursday (6 November).

Other key speakers at the meeting will include Energy Commissioner Christos Papoutsis, who will outline the environmental challenges of meeting Europe's energy needs; British Labour MEP Ken Collins, chairman of the European Parliament's environment committee; Professor Bert Bolin, former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and representatives from the business and scientific communities.