By Martin Banks - 1st December 2011
The EU must show the necessary leadership to prevent a stalemate in climate negotiations
Jo Leinen
Senior MEP Jo Leinen has urged the EU to "show leadership" at the UN climate summit currently underway in Durban.
The German Socialist wants the EU to give its "full support" to continue the Kyoto protocol beyond 2012.
He also claims that the EU's economy would benefit from aiming above the current 20 per cent greenhouse gas reduction target.
"The continuation of the Kyoto protocol beyond 2012 will decide the success or failure of the Durban summit.
"The EU must show the necessary leadership to prevent a stalemate in climate negotiations," said Leinen, who chairs the environment committee and is also leading parliament's large delegation at the talks in South Africa.
His comments come on Thursday as the charity WWF and Ecofys launched their "EU climate policy tracker" for 2011.
At the launch, they warned that EU climate and energy policy is "failing to put the EU on a course to 2050 decarbonisation".
The tracker, a newly updated and revised version of a 2010 study, reveals that despite improvements by nine member states over the past year, some have achieved a worse score than last year.
WWF also says that the overall average remains low.
An evaluation of EU policy using a scale from A to G - where G is lowest - finds that the average score is "disappointing".
WWF says theirs is the only tracking tool covering European climate policy that allows governments and stakeholders to easily identify policy areas where action can be taken to effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A recent resolution adopted by the environment committee calls for new measures, including needed to curb aviation and marine emissions (excluded from the Kyoto protocol), and to address land use change.
In the face of challenges by some countries outside the EU, MEPs stand firmly behind legislation they approved in 2008 to include aviation in the EU emissions trading system from 1 January 2012.
MEPs are concerned that there is a "gigatonne gap" between international commitments and the UN target of limiting average global warming to two degrees. UN scientific reports have concluded that that industrialised countries.
