Debate heats up over Europe's 'carbon competitiveness'

In its final report (8 November), the EU's High Level Group (HLG) on Competitiveness, Energy and Environment argued in favour of sectoral approaches, saying these would prevent a disruption of clean technology improvements in developing countries. The HLG favours a 'bottom up' approach, whereby the sectoral targets would be "initiated by business together with public authorities", the report says. 

In the run-up to Bali, a group of 150 major UK and EU companies, as well as the Prince of Wales, issued a statement calling for a "sufficiently ambitious, international and comprehensive legally-binding United Nations agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will provide business with the certainty it needs to scale up global investment in low-carbon technologies".  

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) recently put forward a paper outlining possible linkages between a global CO2 regime and sectoral agreements, arguing that a global carbon market could be built "progressively from local, national, sector or regional programs, each contributing to the long-term goal".

Lester R. Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, DC argues that "building a new economy, one that can sustain economic progress, involves phasing out old industries, restructuring existing ones, and creating new ones. This new economy will be powered by renewable sources of energy, will have a more diverse transport system - relying more on rail, buses, and bicycles, and less on cars - and will recycle everything".

But a transition to this kind of low-carbon economy as outlined by Brown raises eyebrows not only among industry and employer's groups.  

ETUC, the European Trade Union Confederation, supports urgent measures to mitigate climate change, but is concerned that the employment aspect "has been grossly underestimated so far in international climate change negotiations", the group said in a 30 November press statement. 

According to Joël Decaillon, ETUC's Confederal Secretary, a global climate change deal should include "policies aimed explicitly at developing the jobs and training that correspond to the new low-carbon goods and services and managing the restructuring operations that could be triggered by a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy", he said. 

ETUC is also calling for the establishment of a special fund, "managed and financed in large measure by the public powers", in order to address any adverse effects of climate change policies on employment levels.

The environmental group WWF is in favour of a strengthened EU ETS with full auctioning rather than separate allocations of credits for energy intensive industries. WWF also supports the idea of mandatory CO2 caps for individual power stations, an idea the group says is currently being put forward in California.