EU climate goals get national backing

Member states like Germany and Spain, which have renewable energy support schemes in the form of guaranteed feed-in tariffs, are concerned their schemes could be undermined by excessive GO trading. Germany in particular is "not keen" on companies being able to trade GO certificates and wants national governments to maintain control over trade. 

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs assured member states before the debate that "careful attention" was given to the issue in the proposal on renewable energies and that the "possibility to protects support schemes is there”.

Other member states with less domestic potential for renewable energy production, notably Luxembourg, favour a greater degree of GO trading. Cyprus described its national targets as allocated by the Commission as "particularly high" and "impossible to achieve", and predicts that the island will need to purchase a high number of GO certificates.

Denmark also argued that its target, the second highest in the EU, was too high and did not respect previous efforts by the country to boost renewables.

Both Poland and Germany supported the speedy introduction of sustainability criteria for biomass use. Poland wants to see a greater use of biomass from within the EU and is opposed to biomass imports.

The Czech Republic called for "further study" on the competitiveness aspects of the package, in reference to the impact of a revised EU ETS on industry.

The NGO Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe argues that the EU must reduce GHG emissions by at least 30% by 2020 in order to make a significant contribution to keeping mean global temperatures below two degrees Celsius, the threshold beyond which dangerous sea level rises, species extinction and other climate change-related fallout becomes likely.

The EU's Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs and EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas are both 'optimistic' that the international climate change negotiations launched in Bali will lead to a global deal, indicating that the EU would up its commitments to 30% GHG reductions by 2020.

But two degrees Celcius "will be there", says Aviel Verbruggen, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who addressed the issue during a conference in Brussels on 26 February. Verbruggen predicts a likely increase of up to three or four degrees Celsius given current efforts at EU and international level, and suggests that avoiding the two degree mark is "almost impossible given the inertia in our systems" in terms of existing and growing levels of GHG emissions. Global GHG emissions would need to be cut by 80% to 95% by 2050 in order to prevent significant climate change-related fallout, says Verbruggen. 

The EU has set a goal of reducing GHG emissions by 50% by 2050.