[Comment] EU must agree to 30% cuts to emissions now
JEREMY HOBBS
10.12.2008 @ 17:41 CET
EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - The credit crunch has shown that European leaders can take swift, decisive and collective action when they need to, and rightly so: Millions of jobs are at stake.
But as politicians busy themselves saving banks, cutting taxes and slashing interest rates, a greater storm looms. Averting this crisis will require an even greater demonstration of concerted action. And they are set to fluff it.
The climate crisis is already destroying millions of livelihoods (Photo: German presidency 2007)
The climate crisis is already destroying millions of livelihoods. Vulnerable communities are struggling to cope with a four-fold increase in the number of natural disasters – cyclones, droughts and floods – in a decade. In Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, people were recently forced to live through three hurricanes in as many weeks.
Behind these headlines are millions of unheralded everyday tragedies: women forced to walk further to find water for their children; farmers having to guess when best to plant their seeds only for them to be washed away by unpredictably heavy rains; children pulled from school to raise extra money for families unable to cope.
Climate change constitutes a gross violation of universal human rights. Millions of poor people's basic rights to life, security, food, water, health and shelter are being violated with increasing frequency and severity as global warming gathers pace.
Although climate change is primarily a problem for the poor, it is not a problem of the poor. Responsibility lies with industrialised countries, such as those of the EU that got rich by burning fossil fuels over the last century, raising CO2 to today's levels.
Through their historic and continued emissions these countries are effectively committing the greatest systematic violation of human rights in history.
This places two principal obligations upon EU Member States. First, they must stop the violations by cutting their domestic greenhouse gas emissions by at least 30% percent by 2020 to avoid runaway climate change. Second, they must help the victims of climate change to adapt with impact that are now already unavoidable: Oxfam estimates that at least €40 billion a year is needed.
Empty-handed in Poznan
But member states are shirking their responsibilities. Europe has sent its delegation to the UN Climate Conference in Poznan empty-handed.
In Brussels, the much trumpeted climate and energy Package, supposed to cement Europe's position as a global leader on climate change, appears likely to fail to deliver on either obligation.
Take adaptation. In October, MEPs voted that half the revenues from the EU-wide auctioning of carbon permits be earmarked for developing countries.
This was a win-win proposition – new money in amounts big enough to match the scale needed, potentially €75bn a year by 2020. It's also fair, targeting Europe's largest and dirtiest industries.
But member sates are now baulking at this, trying to do away with the "polluter pays" principle so that industries will receive more permits for free. This would put money straight into the pockets of big business.
So much for fair and just compensation. What of cutting emissions? Here the member states propose a cut of 20 percent by 2020 – which in itself is not enough to avoid serious climate change – to 30 percent if an appropriate international deal is struck.
But it is unclear exactly how the change in target would be triggered, and saying "I will if you will" is not leadership. Meanwhile, by seeking to water down compliance mechanisms and allowances to "buy in" the bulk of emissions savings from overseas rather than cut-back emissions domestically, member states are showing they have little appetite for making the cuts themselves.
Dropping biofuel targets
Some of the EU's proposals risk making things even worse, such as its target for 10 percent of transport energy coming from biofuels by 2020.
The World Bank estimates that US and EU biofuel policies were responsible for as much as three quarters of the recent spike in food prices. This crisis pushed more than 100 million people into poverty and in one year cost developing countries more than three times what they received in aid.
If the bank is correct, then this policy in itself would constitute a gross violation of the right to food. But efforts (again from the European Parliament) to protect universal human rights, including the right to food, have been rejected out-of-hand by member states.
They say that these would be too burdensome upon industry. Meanwhile, scientific research has thrown into doubt the entire idea that biofuels would offer any net greenhouse gas benefits in the first place.
What they do offer is a pork barrel, with industry licking its lips at the prospect of billions of euros in subsidies and guaranteed markets propped-up by tariffs and blending mandates.
Climate change poses the single greatest threat to human rights we have ever seen. Decisive and rapid action is needed from the meeting of European premiers and presidents this week [subs: Dec 11-12]. They must place the rights of people rather than the interests of big business at the heart of policy making.
They must acknowledge their share of the blame, agree policies that will bring these violations to a quick end, and help those while there is still a chance.
This means committing to at least 30 percent cuts in domestic emissions by 2020, auctioning of all emissions permits, and using the revenues to fund adaptation and low carbon development in the South.
It means dropping biofuel targets that place the land rights and human rights of vulnerable communities at risk whilst offering only illusory greenhouse gas savings.
It's still not too late, but it's getting very close.
Jeremy Hobbs is executive director of Oxfam International
