| Author (Person) | Carstens, Karen |
|---|---|
| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | Vol.10, No.7, 26.2.04 |
| Publication Date | 26/02/2004 |
| Content Type | News |
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By Karen Carstens Date: 26/02/04 RUSSIA has morphed into the enfant terrible of global climate-change policy with its ongoing refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. But, closer to home, Spain is the EU's renegade on this count. The Union's commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions could be sorely tested with a 31 March deadline looming for member states to submit 'national allocation plans' to the European Commission detailing how they will go about the business of making emissions trading work. Some countries, notably Spain and Italy, have emerged as 'rogues' in the process, procrastinating until the last minute before they submit their plans. At the same time, some environmentalists fear that elements within both government and industry in these member states would love to see a so-called linking directive, now under discussion in the European Parliament, thwarted because of over-zealous efforts to get it right by its rapporteur, Alexander de Roo. "The forces of darkness in Spain and Italy are just waiting for the Greens to make the linking directive so ambitious that we can't do it," one environmentalist lobbyist told this paper. "Non-agreement on the linking directive could be the straw that breaks the camel's back - it could unleash a chain reaction. We're walking on a tightrope here. So we really need de Roo and the [directive's] other rapporteurs to look at the bigger picture," he added. But the Dutch Green MEP has recently expressed confidence that he feels he could now get up to 90% of his colleagues to support the directive. A Parliamentary environment committee vote is due on 16 March and any deal would have to be hammered out between then and the assembly's last plenary session in April. De Roo has made a few concessions to industry, including an amendment that would allow companies to access the Kyoto 'flexible mechanisms' as soon as the EU's emissions trading system kicks off in 2005, three years earlier than they would have been able to under the original proposal. It suggests ways of linking EU climate emission trading, enshrined in a separate directive adopted by Parliament last July, with the Kyoto Protocol's two types of flexible mechanisms - joint implementation and the clean development mechanism. These allow for a donor country to invest in pollution abatement measures in a host country in return for 'credits' which it may use in meeting its own emissions targets. Whereas joint implementation refers to initiatives undertaken between two countries with emissions trading schemes, the clean development mechanism applies to investments made in a country with no plans of its own. Moreover, concerns over Spain and Italy - and, to a lesser extent, Portugal and Greece - trying to kill off the linking directive could be overblown. Their ability to stick to, let alone come up with, their own national allocation plans is, however, more worrisome in the long term. Rob Bradley, of Climate Action Network Europe, said the real problem is that Spain is going through a rude awakening after sleeping for far too long. "Over the last seven years, they haven't been doing anything [on climate change]," he said. In this vein, recent 'anti-Kyoto' comments made by Loyola de Palacio, the transport and energy commissioner, have ruffled quite a few feathers - including those of Margot Wallström, her environment counterpart. Still, these could also be dismissed as political posturing ahead of Spain's national elections in mid-March: de Palacio may have her eye on a ministerial post back home if the ruling Partido Popular re-emerges as the nation's strongest political force. "This furore over Spain could all blow over soon," said Bradley, who also pointed out the irony that de Palacio at the same time has signed written warnings the Commission has sent to 14 of the current 15 member states asking them to comply with last year's emissions trading directive. Outstanding issues in the linking directive that could prove tricky are whether or not to create national climate change programmes to mesh with the EU-wide emissions trading system, as well as how to link it to those in other countries that have not ratified the protocol. De Roo wants to allow links between the EU scheme and any Australian and American states that take emission caps in defiance of their national governments as a gesture of support. Bradley suggested that such points will probably be shoved into a review clause to "provide the Commission with another headache" at a later date. Meanwhile, Luxembourg-based steel firm Arcelor has become the first company to mount a legal challenge against the EU scheme. But experts on how companies are doing in adopting it say there is no single sector that is particularly good or bad. It varies from company to company and country to country, they say. And Bradley said most member states have sufficiently laid the groundwork to take on the emissions trading system when it begins next year. But now there is another Kyoto critic up north, too: unless the Protocol enters into force soon, Finland should campaign for renegotiation of national greenhouse gas limitation targets, the country's Industry Minister Mauri Pekkarinen has said, echoing concerns from government officials in Spain. |
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| Source Link | Link to Main Source http://www.european-voice.com/ |
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| Subject Categories | Environment |
| Countries / Regions | Spain |
