Meeting in Brussels yesterday for a two-day summit, heads of state and government discussed progress made in climate talks to decide on a global agreement in Copenhagen by the end of the year. They concluded the discussions on financing climate change by endorsing the draft conclusions.
EU leaders backed backed the agreement reached last week by finance ministers, who stressed that the principles of ability to pay and responsibility for emissions should serve as a basis for climate funding (EurActiv 09/06/09). But they postponed decisions on other aspects of financing, to be agreed before October.
Leaders supported the incoming Swedish EU Presidency's proposal to draw up a work programme and ensure proper EU coordination and decision-making ahead of international negotiating meetings leading to the Copenhagen conference.
The Council will ask the Commission to promptly table proposals, especially on financing, to allow EU leaders "to take appropriate decisions on all aspects of financing at its October meeting," state the draft conclusions.
The failure to put any figures on the table for the EU's contribution provoked a backlash from environmentalists. WWF accused the Union of shifting the burden onto developing countries by insisting it was up to poor nations to describe in detail why they deserve support for tackling climate change, before EU countries make any pledges for action themselves.
Greenpeace expressed concern that the EU might not be ready to take the international talks further at the G8 summit in Italy next month. "No action from the EU now leaves the road wide open for less ambitious countries like Japan and the US to water down the deal," said Joris den Blanken, EU climate and energy policy director at the NGO.
Danish premier sidelines targets for stabilising emissions
Speaking at a conference organised by the European Policy Centre, Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen confirmed the decision on financing would come in few months.
Rasmussen, whose country will host the global climate change talks in December, stressed the need for targets and national commitments on reductions of CO2 emissions that will lead to stabilisation of global emissions in 2020. "It would be nice to have everybody agree on short term targets, but what we need is to stabilise emissions by 2020," he said.
"If we allow some countries to increase emissions for some time, it means that others have to be more ambitious," he added, noting that the EU should maintain its leadership role and keep its ambitious target of 30% cut by 2020.
"Instead of discussing on how we should try to push the US to be more ambitious, I think it is important to find a common ground upon which to build the sound architecture of a deal," he argued, pointing out industrialised countries as the EU and the United States must agree on mid-term emission targets.
Rasmussen wants the EU to maintain leadership towards reaching an ambitious global deal, even if that means that others will follow different paths at different speeds. "If we need to be 100 km from here in an hour we can drive 50 km/hour for some time – but at some stage the pace will certainly have to be increased considerably – and surely we should not wait 50 minutes before we do it," he said, metaphorically-speaking.
Adequate financing linked to specific actions in emerging economies
Despite progress made on financing mitigation and adaptation in developing countries, Rasmussen acknowledged that adequate funding should be mobilised, and linked it to specific actions and low-carbon strategies developed by emerging economies.
On this point, the summit conclusions note that the financing mechanism should as far as possible build on existing – and if necessary reformed – instruments and institutions.
"Efficient, effective and equitable financing mechanism must be ensured," states the document, backing the European Commission's proposal to establish a comprehensive system to measure, report and verify mitigation actions in developing countries.
Carbon border tax
Commenting on French President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to impose a carbon tax on products imported from countries that do abide by international agreement like the Kyoto Protocol, the Danish premier said it was not advisable. "First we have to negotiate an international agreement. Then we will deal with the question of carbon leakage," he said.
