The Greens/European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament presented a new study prepared by research group CE Delft, which made the case for raising the EU's emissions reduction goal to 30% below 1990 levels by 2020. It came as EU environment ministers met to continue long-running discussions about whether the EU should move beyond its current target of 20% (EurActiv 15/03/10).
The report argued that sticking to the 20% goal would seriously undermine the EU's main climate policy instrument, its emissions trading scheme (EU ETS).
The research pointed out that the situation has changed remarkably since the target was agreed in 2007, as the onset of global recession has reduced emissions independently of any climate policies. Moreover, the recession's influence will be felt even in the next trading period from 2013 to 2020, as companies are allowed to bank unused credits they have accumulated due to falling industrial output, it added.
As a result, only 4% of domestic emission reductions would be influenced by EU climate policies, the report estimated. As such, the EU ETS will not be able to deliver incentives to innovate and develop new technologies - as called for by the European Commission in its Europe 2020 strategy - unless more ambitious targets are adopted too, it said.
In addition to a domestic rationale, raising the bar would also be necessary to contribute fairly to a new international climate agreement, the Greens said.
The EU itself has called for developed countries to collectively reduce emissions by 30% below 1990 levels by 2020, meaning that the bloc's fair share would be to cut emissions by up to 40%, the report concluded.
Moreover, any climate leadership efforts would require positioning the EU among more ambitious countries, the researchers said. For the moment, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Norway, Switzerland and most emerging countries have adopted more ambitious targets than the EU's efforts, they argued.
"For me as a European, it's painful to see that our pledges are comparable with pledges from the US and Russia," Dutch Green MEP Bas Eickhout said at the launch of the study.
He stressed that moving to 30% is necessary in order to set a carbon price that will trigger additional reductions and thereby create new jobs.
Eickhout also advised the EU not to attempt to make offering to raise its targets conditional on other countries pledging to do the same. He pointed out that this strategy did not work at the Copenhagen climate conference last December.
"If you want an agreement, think of technical transfer: that's what China is interested in. Or think of funding: that's what developing countries are interested in," he said.
