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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Green Fade-Out: Europe to Ditch Climate Protection Goals
The climate between Brussels and Berlin is polluted, something European
Commission officials attribute, among other things, to the "reckless" way
German Chancellor Angela Merkel blocked stricter exhaust emissions during
her re-election campaign to placate domestic automotive manufacturers like
Daimler and BMW. This kind of blatant self-interest, officials complained at
the time, is poisoning the climate.
But now it seems that the climate is no longer of much importance to the
European Commission, the EU's executive branch, either. Commission sources
have long been hinting that the body intends to move away from ambitious
climate protection goals. On Tuesday, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported as
much.
At the request of Commission President José Manuel Barroso, EU member
states are no longer to receive specific guidelines for the development
ofrenewable energy. The stated aim of increasing the share of green energy
across the EU to up to 27 percent will hold. But how seriously countries
tackle this project will no longer be regulated within the plan. As of 2020
at the latest -- when the current commitment to further increase the share
of green energy expires -- climate protection in the EU will apparently be
pursued on a voluntary basis.
Climate Leaders No More?
With such a policy, the European Union is seriously jeopardizing its global
climate leadership role. Back in 2007, when Germany held the European
Council presidency, the body decided on a climate and energy legislation
package known as the "20-20-20" targets, to be fulfilled by the year 2020.
They included:
a 20 percent reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions;
raising the share of EU energy consumption produced from renewable
resources to 20 percent;
and a 20 percent improvement in the EU's energy efficiency.
All of the goals were formulated relative to 1990 levels. And the targets
could very well be met. But in the future, European climate and energy
policy may be limited to just a single project: reducing greenhouse gas
emissions. The Commission plans also set no new binding rules for energy
efficiency.
Welcome, Frackers
In addition, the authority wants to pave the way in the EU for the
controversial practice of fracking, according to the daily Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung. The report says the Commission does not intend to
establish strict rules for the extraction of shale gas, but only minimum
health and environmental standards.
The plans will be officially presented next Wednesday ahead of an EU summit
meeting in March. Observers, however, believe that a decision is unlikely to
come until the summer at the earliest. But action must be taken this year:
At the beginning of 2015, a climate conference will take place in Paris at
which a global climate agreement is to be hashed out.
The European Parliament is unlikely to be pleased with the Commission's
plans. Just at the beginning of January, a strong parliamentary majority
voted to reduce carbon emissions EU-wide by 40 percent by 2030 and to raise
the portion of renewables to at least 30 percent of energy consumption.
Germany's Energy Goals at Risk
The Commission's move further isolates Germany. Merkel's government, a "
grand coalition" of her conservatives and the center-left Social Democratic
Party (SPD), seeks to increase the share of renewables in the country's
energy mix to 60 percent by 2036. As reported in the latest issue of SPIEGEL
, Sigmar Gabriel, SPD chair and minister of energy and economics, recently
urged Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and Energy Commissioner Günther
Oettinger to put forth mandatory expansion targets for renewable energy in
the EU by 2030. Europe "can't afford to pass up this opportunity," Gabriel
wrote.
But within the Commission, the ambitious project has long been controversial
. The same goes for EU member states, as Gabriel recently discovered. Prior
to Christmas the minister, together with eight colleagues from throughout
the EU, called for a "renewables target" in a letter to the Commission. But
some countries, such as France, joined the appeal only hesitantly at the
time. Paris might prefer instead to rely more heavily on nuclear power in
order to meet stringent carbon emission requirements.
Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger, a German from Merkel's Christian
Democratic Union, has also shown reluctance. Rather than setting clear goals
for the share of renewables, he wants fixed targets only for the reduction
of carbon emissions -- and he is skeptical even of the 40 percent target
proposed by Climate Commissioner Hedegaard.
The Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (
SWP) writes in a recent study that more moderate EU climate goals and less
support for renewable energies could have a real impact on Germany's so-
called Energiewende, or energy revolution. "In such a context," writes the
nonpartisan think tank, "it will be increasingly difficult for Germany to
successfully carry out pioneering policies." | T*********I
发帖数: 10729 | 2 欧盟考虑在2020年后放弃给成员国提出强制性减排要求 |
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