Sunday

28th May 2023

EU on track to meet Kyoto targets using controversial offsets

The European Union members that are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol are on track to meet their greenhouse gas reduction target commitments under the 1997 UN framework.

All of the EU-15 - those countries members of the bloc at the time - apart from Austria will manage to cut emissions from six greenhouse gases by eight percent on 1990 levels over the 2008-2012 period, according to the latest projections from the European Environment Agency.

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  • Additional reductions will come from categorising forests as carbon sinks (Photo: Wikipedia)

The agency suggests that the EU-15 will go beyond what is demanded, achieving a total reduction of more than 13 percent below the baseline year.

Five countries - France, Germany, Greece, Sweden and the United Kingdom - have already reduced domestic emissions below their targets.

However, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain will not meet their targets and it is only through offsetting their emissions that can claim a win.

Many environment groups however suggest that offsetting is something of a fudge, arguing that carbon offsets allow people to keep on polluting so long as they pay others to make up the difference.

Both environmentalists and increasingly a number of economists have become highly critical of the offset industry.

"These projections further cement the EU's leadership in delivering on our international commitments to combat climate change," said environment commissioner Stavros Dimas.

"And with the EU climate and energy package adopted earlier this year we have already put in place the key measures to reduce our emissions much further to at least 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. No other region of the world has yet done this."

"It is crucial that our partners in the industrialised world and the big emerging economies live up to their responsibilities."

The results are based on member state countries' own projections.

The reductions will be achieved through a combination of existing and additional policies, the purchase by governments of credits from emission-reducing projects outside the EU, the trading of emission allowances by participants in the EU emission trading scheme (EU ETS).

Some one percent of the reduction would come from claiming forests as "carbon sinks" that absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

The European Union's ETS, for its part, is credited with another 1.4 percent of the reduction.

Buying credits from projects that claim emission reductions carried out in the developing world would bring a further reduction of 2.2 percent, according to the report.

The projections from member states have begun to take into account sharp declines in emissions resulting from the economic crisis, but the report says that emissions may be overestimated in the short term and so the recession could bring about further cuts in emissions.

PFAS 'forever chemicals' cost society €16 trillion a year

Researchers found that global societal costs of the so-called forever chemicals or PFAS amount to €16 trillion per year. Meanwhile, the bigger producers of these chemicals are also among the ones spending the most to lobby EU policies.

EU: national energy price-spike measures should end this year

"If energy prices increase again and support cannot be fully discontinued, targeted policies to support vulnerable households and companies — rather than wide and less effective support policies — will remain crucial," the commission said in its assessment.

Double rejection for EU flagship nature restoration plan

MEPs from the agriculture and fisheries committees have voted to reject the nature restoration proposal — a key proposal that aims to halt biodiversity loss and reverse the degradation of ecosystems in the bloc.

Putting a price on nature? Not a good idea, experts say

In a moment that could have been an act of polite rebellion, physicist and ecologist Vandana Shiva walked off stage during a speech about the need to 'put a price on nature' in the European Parliament this week.

EU: national energy price-spike measures should end this year

"If energy prices increase again and support cannot be fully discontinued, targeted policies to support vulnerable households and companies — rather than wide and less effective support policies — will remain crucial," the commission said in its assessment.

Opinion

EU export credits insure decades of fossil-fuel in Mozambique

European governments are phasing out fossil fuels at home, but continuing their financial support for fossil mega-projects abroad. This is despite the EU agreeing last year to decarbonise export credits — insurance on risky non-EU projects provided with public money.

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