EU ENVIRONMENT ministers are expected to reach agreement in Luxembourg today on a text that will serve as a guide for talks at December’s UN climate-change conference in Copenhagen.
There will be a call for all developed countries to adopt binding targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, at least in line with the unilateral cut of 20 per cent on 1990 levels already offered by the EU.
The ministers are also expected to call for targets to be set for cuts in emissions by air transport and shipping, which were excluded from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
There is a determination in the EU to plug this “gap in the Kyoto architecture” by setting 2011 as a deadline for the International Maritime Organisation and the International Civil Aviation Organisation to come up with plans to implement cuts.
“The EU has already found a way to bring air transport into the European emissions trading system, but would like to see this extended on a global basis, with shipping also brought into the equation,” a source said last night.
Another lacuna in the Kyoto Protocol that the EU wants to see addressed is the issue of strengthening the protection of forests in developing countries given that deforestation is responsible for 20 per cent of global emissions.
The environment ministers are expected to reiterate the EU’s demand for all developed countries to set binding targets for cutting their emissions by 2020, even though the US believes such targets should be voluntary.
“The EU agreed its climate and energy package last December and couldn’t have gone to Copenhagen without it. We would be in the same position as [US president Barack] Obama is in now if we hadn’t got our ducks in a row when we did,” the source said.
The Luxembourg environment council is expected to provide clarity on where Europe stands in the hope of “bringing the Americans further along” and also persuading major developing countries like China to slow down the growth in their emissions.
However, the EU “will not be requiring developing countries to take on commitments that they can’t meet” as part of its negotiating position for Copenhagen, according to the source.
