By Martin Banks - 9th December 2009
What successes there have been are not particularly the result of action taken by the EU
Rebecca Harms
A new study says that the EU´s efforts to cut CO2 emissions are not ambitious enough.
The report, published on Wednesday, comes as the two-week UN climate change summit gets underway in Copenhagen.
It says that it is "clear" that the EU´s claim to be the leader in international climate policy "does not stand up to analysis."
It says that much of the EU´s emissions reductions to date have occurred "due to coincidence" rather than being the result of deliberate climate policies.
The report goes on to says that the EU´s emissions reduction pledges - either the 20 per cent or the possible 30 per cent reduction by 2020 from 1990 levels - "are not consistent" with the EU goal of limiting the increase in global temperatures to below 2 degrees centigrade and "are certainly far from the EU´s leadership claims."
The study, carried out by the renowned Ecofys Institute and commissioned by the Greens in parliament, examines the EU's CO2 reduction targets and compares them with the targets of other countries.
It also deals with how reduction efforts and climate financing can be distributed fairly between industrialised countries - as well as the role leading emerging economies can play.
Speaking at a news conference to launch the report in parliament, Rebecca Harms,a German Greens MEP, said, "Only around half the emissions reductions that have occurred in the EU to date have been as a result of environmental policies, with no real impact through the emissions trading scheme to date.
"The rest have been the result of the collapse of former Soviet industries and the economic recession."
Harms, joint leader of the Greens group, said, "What successes there have been are not particularly the result of action taken by the EU or member states."
Dutch Greens MEP Bas Eickhout said the report "explodes the "myth that emerging economies are not willing to contribute to efforts to mitigate climate change."
He said Japan, plus emerging economies, such as Brazil, India and China are doing more than industrialised countries to meet their share of the effort for limiting warming.
The report said the targets announced by some emerging economies "could place these countries well within the 15 to 30 per cent deviation from business as usual range, as proposed by the IPCC.
Meanwhile, the British National Union of Farmers (NFU) says that agriculture "can and will" be part of the solution to climate change.
NFU combinable crops board chairman Ian Backhouse and Dr Jonathan Scurlock, the NFU’s chief adviser on renewable energy and climate change, will be attending the climate talks to help raise the profile of the agricultural sector.
Backhouse will be speaking at a special agriculture and rural development dy on 12 December.
“In Britain, our government chief scientist Prof John Beddington has warned of a ‘perfect storm’ of increasing demand for food, water and energy in the face of a changing climate”, said Backhouse.
“We believe that agriculture has an important role to play in meeting all these needs - but we will need the cooperation of our governments, the private sector, NGOs, the public and media.”
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