Paris - The European Union and its current president France
began work on Thursday on what has been hailed as the most important
EU legal proposal in the last five years - a package aimed at
fighting global warming.
'This package is very important, not only from an environmental
point of view but also for economics,' European Commissioner for the
Environment Stavros Dimas told journalists at the Informal Meeting of
Ministers of the Environment, held outside Paris. 'Higher (commodity)
prices advocate for more energy efficiency.'
Dimas also noted that the package would 'contribute to energy
security by reducing dependence on foreign oil sources.'
The host of the three-day meeting, French Environment Minister
Jean-Louis Borloo, had earlier warned, 'It will not be easy. It will
take a lot of work. No other region in the world has attempted a
thing like this.'
The 'thing' Borloo and his fellow EU environmental ministers are
attempting is to find agreement on laws that will reduce by 20 or 30
per cent greenhouse gas emissions in the Union by 2020, increase the
use of renewable energy sources to 20 per cent of all EU energy
consumption by 2020, and consume 20 per cent less energy in the EU
than is projected for 2020.
France has made an agreement on this package a top priority of its
six-month presidency, and is underlining the importance of the issue
by making it the subject of its first ministerial meeting as EU
president, just three days after assuming the role.
However, as Borloo suggested, difficult obstacles must be overcome
before agreement can be found. Disagreements remain, for example,
over how the EU's 27 member states should share the effort and costs
of fighting climate change.
Under the European Commission's plan, each member state is given a
reduction target based on its emissions in 2005 - the first year for
which accurate EU-wide figures were available.
That proposal has angered new members such as Hungary and the
Baltic states, who demand credit for making major emissions cuts
between 1990 and 2005 - even though the 'cuts' came largely from the
collapse of Soviet industry, rather than government policies.
Both Borloo and Dimas said that the poorer members of the Union
would be granted financial concessions and emissions allowances to
reduce the impact of the measures on their treasuries and their
economies.
'We have to make the package equitable for all, especially for
those who face higher initial investment costs,' Dimas said.
'There will be more gains than withdrawals in these countries,'
Borloo noted.
Borloo said that Europe would be aiming for a 30 per cent
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on the assumption that an
appropriate international agreement will be achieved at the
Copenhagen climate summit at the end of 2009.
'But 20 per cent will remain a default figure if no efficient
agreement is found,' he said.
German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said he was convinced
that France would succeed in getting the EU members to agree.
'Now things are getting serious in the matter of protecting the
environment,' he said. 'Up to now we have only set targets. Now we
must take measures.'
The meeting of environment ministers will be followed by a session
with EU energy ministers, which ends on Saturday.
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