EU faces tough decisions on climate change and renewables

Leaders from the EU’s 27 member states will be looking to make history as they gather on 8-9 March 2007 for the EU’s Spring Summit, by agreeing to ambitious plans to cut emissions of greenhouse gases.

However, while the strategy has already gathered a large consensus at ministerial level, a row on renewable energy still needs to be resolved and could damage the EU’s credibility as a world leader on global warming.
The main opposition comes from France and Finland, which both satisfy a large portion of their electricity needs through low-carbon nuclear energy and say that this should be taken into account. They are backed by a number of the new member states, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria – where coal remains a vital source of power and governments wish to resist binding targets that would force them to invest heavily in expensive renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

Other countries are also warning against imposing unreachable goals on governments.

EU leaders “absolutely must make fighting climate change the guiding imperative and should not compromise on that goal in their scramble for energy security”, said Jan Kowalzig, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe.

He believes that the EU should aim higher on cutting emissions, saying: “It would be a dangerous discrepancy to only commit to reducing emissions by 20% by 2020, when scientific and political analysis all point to 30% as the critical reduction needed to avoid catastrophic climate change. A target of less that 30% will indicate to the international community that Europe is shirking its responsibility on climate change.”

EurActiv