Pollution
Fight Fading as European Leaders Battle Crisis
The
next victim of Europe’s economic crisis is becoming the global
effort to restrain fossil fuel emissions and curb pollution now at
record levels.
23
November, 2012
The
European Union, which led the fight by establishing the biggest
market for carbon emissions, is letting the matter slip as a
priority. EU leaders didn’t discuss climate strategy at their four
summits this year, while France, Germany, Spain and Britain are
focused on paring the region’s 10.5 percent unemployment rate and
10.8 trillion euros ($13.9 trillion) in debt. The matter didn’t
emerge during U.S. presidential debates.
“What
scares me is that climate policy is sliding off the international
policy agenda,” International Energy Agency Chief Economist Fatih
Birol said in an interview in advance of the United Nation’s annual
round of talks on the issue that start in three days in Doha, the
capital of the Qatar.
The
inaction contrasts with widening concern among scientists that the
time to react is passing. Sea ice in the Arctic shrank to its lowest
on record this summer as drought devastated corn crops in the U.S.
Midwest and superstorm Sandy pummeled the East coast after becoming
the largest ever tropical system in the Atlantic. The World
Meteorological Organization says greenhouse gas concentrations in the
atmosphere touched a high in 2011, and the UN says that will make the
weather more volatile.
Deadlock
Prevails
For
now, the economy remains the focus of policymakers across Europe,
leaving the biggest polluters in the U.S. and China with little
impetus to break their deadlock over how to act. The 27-nation EU
expects the economy to shrink 0.3 percent this year, the second
recession in four years.
While
the union is working on energy-efficiency measures and curbs for
emissions for autos and industry, its leaders express frustration
that other nations aren’t following their example with more
aggressive action.
“Nothing
is easy because of the crisis,” EU Climate Commissioner Connie
Hedegaard said in an interview. “The big thing that people globally
need to understand is that we don’t only have an economic crisis.
We also have a social and job crisis, and we still have a climate and
environment crisis. We can through climate policies also help create
some jobs we need so badly.”
The
EU will exceed its goal to slash emissions 20 percent from 1990
levels by 2020, she said. Even so, there’s less zeal in EU member
nations to go further on environmental goals.
Cutting
Renewables
The
bloc’s five biggest economies have lowered support for renewables
in the past two years. Germany, which leads the EU in developing
clean energy, is reducing subsidies for renewables and burning more
coal. Spain, saddled with a budget deficit more than twice the
region’s limit, shut off aid to new renewable projects in January.
Italy, the U.K. and France have all cut solar subsidies.
German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who started her career in government as
environment minister from 1994 to 1998, hasn’t made a speech
focusing on climate change since July 16. In Britain, Prime Minister
David Cameron’s coalition government has been squabbling over
carbon cuts and incentives for wind power. Concern is spreading that
the existing efforts may hurt growth across Europe.
“We
too often hear that the EU is the party that holds the key to all
kind of agreements,” Tomasz Chruszczow, a Polish diplomat who led
the EU at the UN talks last year, said Nov. 15 in Brussels. “But we
cannot be held liable for the inaction of others. We can’t accept
the excuses of the biggest economies of the world that they can’t
do something before the EU.”
Polish
Obstacle
Poland,
which relies on coal for 90 percent of its power, says it will oppose
stricter EU climate policies without similar moves abroad. It blocked
efforts to boost the carbon price in the EU and attempts to deepen
the emissions cuts by 2020.
“The
top three factors that have held the EU back in terms of politics are
Poland, Poland and Poland,” Samantha Smith, who heads the
environmental group WWF’s global climate and energy program, said
in an interview. “The financial crisis certainly is affecting how
EU political leaders see their mandate.”
The
EU has long been at the front of global efforts on the environment.
As well as establishing a carbon market, it spearheaded efforts at UN
talks in South Africa last year that agreed to devise a new global
treaty. The EU also is on track to meet commitments under the 1997
Kyoto Protocol.
‘Must
Lead’
“The
Europeans must lead on climate protection to put pressure on others
and ensure that the global debate on climate protection continues,”
German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier told reporters in Berlin
today. “That will only be possible if the Europeans at home ensure
that everyone sees that we’re taking climate protection seriously
and we’re willing to commit ourselves to ambitious targets.”
Leaders
of the EU haven’t discussed climate strategy this year. They
mentioned climate change in the concluding statement of just one of
their three regular scheduled summits this year. That’s down from
two out of five times in 2011. In 2009 and 2010, climate came up at
all nine meetings. The lull leaves the U.S., China and India, the
three biggest emitters, with little pressure for action.
Doha
Talks
Envoys
from more than 190 nations gathering this weekend in Qatar are
working on measures intended at keeping the rise in the global
temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since
pre-industrial times. They want to agree on a schedule for talks on a
new treaty in 2015 that would come into force in 2020. The meeting is
scheduled to finish on Dec. 7.
“The
economic crisis, which is unparalleled in modern times, has caused
everyone to stop and re-evaluate everything that the government is
doing,” U.K. Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said in an
interview. “Taking action in most cases isn’t without cost,”
though the costs of climate change may outweigh the price of fighting
it, he said.
Last
year, the latest for which full data is available, was the ninth
warmest on record at about 0.51 degree Celsius above the baseline for
the middle of the 20th century, which is about 14 degrees, according
to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA.
Nine of the 10 warmest years since 1880 have occurred since 2000.
‘Timing
Challenge’
“We
are now facing a timing challenge where we have to wait until 2020
for all countries to adopt legally binding emission-reduction
targets,” Gambian envoy Pa Ousman Jarju, who speaks for the UN’s
48-nation Least Developed Countries group, said in an e-mailed
response to questions. “The risk with this situation is that no one
steps forward to reduce emissions because they are simply waiting for
others to join.”
By
2017, it may be impossible to avoid warming greater than the 2-degree
target, the International Energy Agency says. UN scientists in 2007
calculated that developed nations must cut emissions 25 percent to 40
percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to stay on track.
“We
are not seeing that from any quarter,” Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, the
lead climate envoy for Brazil, told reporters on Nov. 14. “Science
is telling us with increased certainty the dangers of inaction.”
The
EU is promising a 20 percent reduction in carbon emissions and has
indicated it would raise the target to 30 percent if others followed.
Followers
Absent
The
comparable actions the EU seeks from other major economies haven’t
materialized. Japan, Canada, Russia and New Zealand have all backed
away from taking on new commitments under Kyoto, leaving the EU,
Australia and a few other European nations to take the treaty into
its second phase of cuts.
China
and India, the first- and third-biggest emitters, aren’t given
targets under the current climate treaty because they’re developing
nations. Along with Brazil and South Africa, they released a
statement this week in Beijing calling for more action from the
industrialized world.
The
U.S., the second-biggest emitter, never ratified the last climate
treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. It has pledged to cut
emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. That’s equivalent to
a 3 percent reduction from 1990.
Obama’s
Reply
“We
haven’t done as much as we need to,” to fight climate change,
President Barack Obama told reporters Nov. 14 in Washington. “The
American people right now have been so focused, and will continue to
be focused on our economy and jobs and growth.”
As
well as agreeing to the new commitments under Kyoto, envoys in Doha
plan to fix a timetable for talks leading to a deal in 2015. There’s
pressure from poorer nations on the richer ones to spell out how they
intend to fill the Green Climate Fund set up last year. That fund
will channel a portion of the $100 billion in annual climate change
aid developed nations have pledged to mobilize by 2020.
Countries
also need to “urgently speed up” the pace of their emissions
cuts, said Christiana Figueres, the diplomat leading the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, which organizes the discussions.
The
World Bank this week said that 4 degrees of warming by 2100, which is
possible without a major action, would cause “cataclysmic changes.”
That may include a 1-meter (three-foot) rise in sea levels, depleted
crop yields and dissolving coral reefs.
“The
later we decide to tackle climate change, the more costly it will
be,” said Birol of the IEA, which is based in Paris. “The more
costly it is, the more difficult it will be to have an agreement. We
are going to have a vicious circle.”
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