The ministers approved, on 30 October, a resolution on climate change that confirms the Union's hopes that international climate talks in Bali from 3-14 December will lead to commitments from all developed countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.
The EU also hopes the conference will set the foundations for a global emissions trading scheme that would replace the current Kyoto Protocol as of 2013.
To that effect, ministers welcomed the announcement, one day earlier, of an International Climate Action Partnership (ICAP), which aims to coordinate and share information on existing regional cap-and trade initiatives within Europe, New Zealand, the US and Canada (EurActiv 30/10/07). They said such a forum could act as a driver for increased "compatibility and potential linkage of regional carbon markets", which could ultimately lead to the creation of a wider, international carbon market.
German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that he did not expect the US to block talks on the subject at the Bali meeting, despite the Bush administration's long-standing opposition to any kind of scheme containing legally-binding CO2 caps.
EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, however, stressed that negotiations would "not be easy" and that President Bush's position remained a major obstacle.
The Commissioner added that a delayed EU package of climate and energy measures, including a review of its own emissions trading scheme, which will expire in 2012, would likely be tabled on 23 January 2008 (EurActiv 23/10/07).
The EU has already decided that airlines should be included in the scheme, which currently covers only energy-intensive industrial installations. But it has not yet confirmed whether shipping – which, along with international aviation, represents "one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions" – could also be incorporated into the future scheme, which is likely to run from 2013 to 2020.
