Quote:EU SUMMIT IN BRUSSELS
Europe Divided over How to Reach Climate Goals

European Union leaders are gathered in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to talk about the future of the climate. But not all are looking into the same crystal ball.

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Agreeing on what to say was the easy part. Leaders from the 27 European Union nations are set to back a 20-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 as compared to 1990 levels at a summit meeting beginning in Brussels on Thursday. Coming to consensus on what steps to take to actually reach those targets, however, promises to be much more difficult.

Germany, which holds the rotating EU presidency for the first six months of 2007, has a clear position: It wants biofuels to make up at least 10 percent of vehicle fuels by 2020 and, more controversially, seeks to require members to get 20 percent of their energy from renewable resources by 2020.

For German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the urgency is clear. "It is not five minutes to midnight," she said on German television on Wednesday night. "It's five past midnight." Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, she also said: "I believe Europe can be a role model. Europe has to commit itself, but then Europe has good prospects for entering into dialogue with other countries to do their share, and the German G8 presidency will be lobbying for that."

She followed that up with warnings Thursday that Europe must adopt tough measures to fight global warming. "We have got to go for a sensible solution, for the right policy mix, which will ultimately deliver results for our grandchildren," Merkel said after pre-summit talks with business and labor leaders.

She said the EU should pressure other leading countries such as the United States and Russia to take action. "Europe only produces 15 percent of global CO2," she said. "The real climate problem will not be solved by Europe alone."

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called for Europe to take a leading role on climate change. "We are now trying to ask the leaders of Europe to rise to the occasion," he said Thursday. Europe has to "show others we are serious about the issue," he said.

Business leaders Thursday were skeptical about Merkel's proposals, however. "In terms of binding obligations on renewables, no one has the foggiest idea of what the costs can be," Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, the head of business lobby group BusinessEurope, told Merkel.

John Monks from the European Trade Union Confederation was more upbeat. "Obviously jobs are at stake, but we do believe that there is a scenario for European leadership," he commented Thursday.

While countries like Germany, Spain and Denmark have invested heavily in wind farms and are already making considerable headway toward generating significant quantities of renewables, countries in Eastern Europe have a long way to go and are concerned that a major shift in their energy mix could harm their growing economies. And to make matters worse, the bloc can't even seem to agree on what renewable energy is.

Germany, which has pledged to shut down its nuclear reactors gradually in coming years, argues that the focus should be on such sources as wind, solar, water and biomass. France, though, would like to label the target as "non-carbon," allowing nuclear energy to be included. The Czech Republic and Slovakia also hope to promote nuclear energy at the summit. And according to German daily Die Welt, European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering, who advocates even deeper emission-cut goals, said on Thursday that nuclear energy should for now be included in the EU's carbon reduction plan.

In addition, renewable energies are for the moment more expensive than sources such as coal. Many countries, especially in Eastern Europe, shy away from the initial investment necessary and argue they can hardly afford to shift away from the cheap, coal-fired plants they currently use.

But perhaps they don't need to? European Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas spent much of last month criticizing Merkel for not being ambitious enough and called into question Germany's self-proclaimed front-runner status when it comes to climate control.

A report in Thursday's Süddeutsche Zeitung appears to back up that critique. According to a study by the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, the targets being discussed by the EU are "not overly ambitious." The study found that, partially due to the dramatic decline in Eastern European industry in the wake of communism's collapse, the EU will have reached 75 percent of its emissions reduction goals by 2010.

Yet despite the focus on climate, the EU is also addressing other issues during the two-day meeting. The latest from Iraq promises to be an issue as will be possible sanctions on Iran for its ongoing nuclear program. How to stabilize Lebanon and Somalia will also be discussed.

But potentially the most controversial of all is what the EU wants to say on the occasion of its 50th birthday, coming up at a March 24-25 anniversary summit in Berlin.

It was supposed to be a chance for the EU to pat itself on the back for its major accomplishments -- getting rid of borders through much of Europe, introducing a single currency, ending centuries of war. Indeed, Merkel had been hoping for a simple three-page declaration that could make an appearance in school books across Europe in the near future.

It has become more complicated than that, however. Britain doesn't want any mention of the EU constitution which it opposes. Any discussion of religious values is likewise extremely touchy, though some countries want to mention Europe's Christian values. Poland wants a reference to Eastern Europe's suffering under communism. And the list goes on.

"If there is a single or very narrow set of authors then it might be possible to come up with a far clearer document," said Ian Manners of the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen. "But when you have 27 hands scribbling away, like 27 different chefs ... guess what you wind up with? Europe's worst goulash."

Der Spiegel March 9, 2007
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`Lip service` comes to mind when this sort of thing is on the political agenda. There`s too much money at stake for the industrial nations, as well as the emerging ones, to take climate change controls seriously sad to say.

Quote:Europe Takes the Lead in Fighting Climate Change

By Carsten Volkery in Brussels

The EU has reached what is being described as an historic agreement on climate protection. But the devil will be in the details of the implementation.

"Ambitious." "Credible." "Qualitative difference." German Chancellor Angela Merkel was full of praise on Friday for the climate change agreement reached at the European Union spring summit. She said she is personally "very satisfied" -- even "happy" -- about the compromise.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso went even further in extolling the deal. He spoke of an "historic result" at the press conference called to announce that Europe's 27 member states had reached consensus. "We can say to the rest of the world, Europe is taking the lead," he said. "You should join us in fighting climate change."

It wasn't just the deal itself that was praised either. Merkel herself became the object of admiration for her hard work in bringing seemingly irreconcilable positions together. French President Jacques Chirac gushed, "Ms. Merkel worked with intelligence and elegance." In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that "Ms. Merkel is doing an excellent job. She has a firm grasp on the details."

At first glance, Merkel -- currently occupying the EU's rotating presidency -- and Barroso have a lot to celebrate. Everything they wanted to get passed got approved -- and even quicker than the day's agenda called for. For the first time in its history, the European Union has a comprehensive agreement on its climate and energy policy:


By 2020, CO2 emissions across Europe are to be cut by 20 percent as compared to 1990 emissions.


Renewable energy sources are to make up 20 percent of the EU's energy mix by 2020 -- up from their current 6.5 percent share.

Just the beginning

Merkel is therefore not wrong when she talks of a "qualitative breakthrough" and a "new dimension of European cooperation." Barroso rightly points out that this is the most ambitious climate protection program in the world.

But the problems only really begin now. The Council has only formulated an abstract goal. The real struggle is reserved for the EU Commission, which now has to negotiate with each individual member state over its emissions and its energy mix. At the summit, Merkel has already had a foretaste of just how much each country defends its own interests, whether that is cheap coal (in the case of Poland) or nuclear power (in the case of France).

The decision over renewable energy in particular led to heated discussions which could only be defused on Friday morning. France joined together with several Eastern European countries to create a front against the plan proposed by Germany, the UK, Italy and the Scandinavian countries to set a binding target.

Hence the only thing which is now set down on paper is the number 20, and no country names -- in other words, nothing about who is making which sacrifices. But this last point could not have been expected at the summit. Merkel said that she had "no reason to assume that anyone wants to escape."

But she admitted that the "hard negotiations" were still to come. The Commission now has a difficult task, she said, but one which is also doable. The nice thing, Merkel said with a grin, is that each member state sees itself as a special case. "Then they are all equal again."

Barroso promised that binding draft laws would be presented by the end of this year. However this will be made more difficult by the fact that the EU has no formal competency for energy policies. That would only exist after the new constitution treaty had been ratified, he said, adding, "With the constitution it would be much easier." Barroso intends to use today's agreement to help push forward the stalled process towards approving a constitution. The heads of government have committed themselves politically, he said.

The lack of power on the part of the Commission to implement the resolution could still turn out to be a problem. Barroso and Merkel do not have a convincing answer as to what the Commission will do should a country refuse to implement the agreement. The German chancellor said, somewhat grumpily, that she saw no reason to discuss that today.

A signal to the G8

Merkel dismissed the suggestion that the agreement was merely a watered-down compromise that puts off important questions about renewable energy. She insisted, rather, that large changes are a product of incremental steps. With the agreement on basic principles, the countries have forged a new beginning, Merkel said. They have opened a door -- now it is a matter of designing the completely new room they've entered.

Merkel also pointed out that the EU underwent a similar process with the Kyoto Protocol. First, the EU agreed to a collective reduction of greenhouse gases of eight percent before dividing up the burden among individual member states. The path towards renewable energy is based on that flexible approach. Denmark, for example, has already agreed to increase its percentage of renewable energy to 30 percent of its total energy use. Meanwhile, France will probably be allowed to include its carbon-free nuclear energy as part of its renewable energy total.

Especially important for the European heads of government is the symbolic effect that the agreement will have on the rest of the world. Merkel hopes that momentum from Brussels will carry over to the G8 conference in June, where she hopes that the United States, China and India will also be open to voluntary emissions reductions. She already senses an increased awareness of climate change among the leaders of those countries.

It's unclear, though, whether the rest of the world will really be influenced by the European climate agreement. Certainly the biggest culprits don't feel any moral pressure to change their ways. The change in tone in the US government has to do mainly with national security: America hopes to decrease its dependence on the conflict regions of the Middle East. China and India meanwhile continue to reject voluntary reductions in emissions, claiming that their economies need a fair shot at growth.

Nevertheless, Merkel and Barroso are both feeling optimistic, a sentiment that's been hard to come by recently in the self-doubting corridors of Brussels. Barroso, for his part, sees today's conference as the beginning of a "virtuous circle". And at the end of that circle, he said, they just might find a new European constitution.

Der Spiegel March 9, 2007

Let's keep hoping they do what's promised
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