Commission lays out post-Copenhagen climate strategy

BRUSSELS - The European Union's climate chief on Tuesday (9 March) told the European Parliament she wants the bloc to forge ahead with cuts in carbon emissions of 30 percent - despite competing powers having yet to make similar pledges - in an attempt to win back EU leadership on the issue, believed to have been lost at the UN climate summit in her native Copenhagen last December.

The EU is already committed to a 30 percent emissions cut but only in the event that other world powers, particularly the United States and China, make comparable reductions. China has yet to do so and US efforts at climate legislation have stalled.

In the wake of the Copenhagen meeting, some EU member states, notably Italy and Poland, have said a shift to 30 percent is now out of the question and Business Europe, the powerful trade association for the continent's biggest businesses, has also insisted that 20 percent is enough for now.

Other member states, such as the UK, have argued that precisely because of Europe's perceived failure in Denmark, a shift to 30 percent is necessary to win over mistrusting developing countries and at the same time steal a march on the US and China in the development of low-carbon technologies.

"It's not going to be easy ...to go to 30 percent," she said, laying out the commission's post-Copenhagen strategy for the first time in an official communication. "Nobody should be naive. We should look after our own industries and we should know what we are doing."

Taking the initiative on climate strategy ahead of a key meeting of EU environment ministers, Ms Hedegaard told MEPs that the commission is to set out a roadmap on how the 30 percent pledge can be achieved by June, ahead of the summer EU summit of heads of state and government.

"Before the June European Council, we will provide an analysis of how exactly we could intelligently achieve the 30 percent target," she said.

The commission document also suggests a roadmap for the UN negotiating process, which is to restart in April. The EU executive wants to see the result of last year's climate summit, the Copenhagen Accord, with was produced outside the UN process and never formally adopted as a UN decision, integrated into the existing two negotiating tracks.

For the first time publicly, the commission has admitted that a global agreement is unlikely before the end of 2011.

"The EU would be ready to reach a legally-binding global deal at the UN climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, at the end of this year, but the commission recognises that differences between countries may delay an agreement until 2011," the document says.

"The EU is ready but the world might not be, and therefore our approach has to be step-wise."

Environmental groups gave a cautious welcome to Ms Hedegaard's ambition to move up the level of cuts, but said that 30 percent is still not enough if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change.

"This falls short of what is demanded by the latest scientific evidence,and a fair distribution of global emissions. The EU needs to step up its emission reduction target and commit to at least 40 percent," said Friends of the Earth in reaction to the document.

Green MEPs meanwhile appear to be backing the commission in its back-room fight with the member states over control of climate policy.

Much has been said about the need for the EU to 'speak with one voice.' There is a need to make this rhetoric a reality as soon as possible," said euro-deputy Bas Eickhout.

"It is certainly welcome that the commission, under new climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard, wants to step up and take on this mantle. This is the most logical way for the EU to play a positive and proactive role in reinvigorating the UN talks."