Verheugen expects US to follow the EU’s lead on climate change

Günter Verheugen, the European enterprise and industry commissioner, has expressed his hopes that the US will strengthen its policy on combating global warming, thus ensuring that European industry is not penalised by the EU’s ambitious action on climate change.

On the eve of a meeting of high-level politicians in Washington tomorrow (9 November), Verheugen said in an interview with European Voice that efforts to combat climate change were important to the "external dimension" of Europe’s competitiveness.

Although climate change is not on the agenda of the first meeting of the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC), which was launched in April to oversee efforts to boost transatlantic economic integration, Verheugen said that the issue was relevant for EU-US co-operation.

"We are preparing legislation which will put a lot of additional burden on our businesses. We do that because there’s strong consensus in our society that we want it, there’s even strong consensus in our industry that this is the right way to do it, but it must not create trade imbalances. Therefore we have a very strong interest that our partners will also have very ambitious policies in that area," he said.

The emissions trading scheme for greenhouse gases, which opened for business in 2005, is one of the linchpins of EU climate change policy. Under the scheme, companies are allocated emission credits which can be sold if they have not been used. The Bush administration has so far resisted EU pressure to join the scheme, expressing fears over its potential economic impact.

The US is instead investing in ways of reducing, capturing and storing greenhouse gases. Nearly $40 billion (€23.3bn) has been invested in projects under the Department of Energy’s climate change technology programme and climate change science programme.

Verheugen acknowledged the US’ technology-based approach to combating climate change, but signalled that "technology alone" could not solve the problem and signalled that tougher measures were needed. "You must have a legal framework. You must have a political target," he said.

He expressed confidence that the time was ripe for a change in US policy. "I think the next American administration will certainly adjust environmental policy. There is a strong societal need in the United States to do more." He cited the strong reaction in US society to "Al Gore’s strong presentation of the issues" as evidence of the shift in public mood.

The commissioner said he was optimistic that the TEC would boost market integration between the EU and the US and would contribute, in the longer term, to bringing the different regulatory philosophies on the two sides of the Atlantic closer. Verheugen is a co-chair of the TEC and will lead the EU delegation attending the talks. This includes four other commissioners and one member of the European Parliament. On the US side, Allan Hubbard, an economic adviser to the US president, will lead a five-strong delegation. Verheugen said that the appointment of Hubbard to co-chair the TEC ensured the initiative was "close to the presidency, in the White House".

Verheugen said he believed that if the EU and the US agreed on making their regulatory standards converge, other economic blocs would adopt their standards in due course. "We see in China, in India, in Russia, we see everywhere a strong tendency to implement European standards," he said. "In a more and more globalised economy, competing standards are not useful."

The EU and US officials will discuss at the TEC meeting the challenges posed by China’s rapidly-growing economy in the aim of eventually forming a common front on issues such as intellectual property.

"I think it could be useful to have a common strategy on how to deal with China, acknowledging that it is in our interests that the Chinese market is growing," Verheugen said.

Günter Verheugen, the European enterprise and industry commissioner, has expressed his hopes that the US will strengthen its policy on combating global warming, thus ensuring that European industry is not penalised by the EU’s ambitious action on climate change.