Europe climate ministers want ambitious targets
Posted by Bronwen Smith-Thomas on 15/07/10 09:00 AM
After a frustratingly slow year on the global climate front, today might mark a breakthrough in terms of political ambition.
It’s exciting to see European climate ministers openly recognise the economic, security and environmental benefits of setting higher carbon targets.
Writing in Thursday's Financial Times (15/7/10), the three politicians responsible for climate policy in the UK, Germany and France (Chris Huhne, Norbert Röttgen and Jean-Louis Borloo) say Europe needs carbon targets that are more ambitious. They want to see 30% emissions reductions by 2020 (compared to 1990 levels) – that’s a dramatic improvement on the current paltry 20% target.
As our own head of climate change, Keith Allot, says in response to this FT article: “Research has shown that the impact on GDP of moving to 30% would be small, and would be outweighed by advantages in innovation, efficiency, reduced dependence on costly fossil fuels and reduced impacts on human health and the environment.”
Crucially, the three ministers don’t say this proposed target would depend on a global climate agreement, which is the current EU position. One thing that last year’s Copenhagen experience taught us is that we don’t have time to wait for global agreement on every element of a climate deal before taking action. After all, the climate is not going to wait for the maddeningly slow pace of human negotiations.
This year we’re continuing to see the reality of a warming world – despite the UK’s cold snap, the winter of 2009/10 was joint fifth warmest on record globally, and since then world average temperatures have hit new highs for the time of year.
Having spent all of 2009 campaigning for an ambitious global climate deal, I really hope things are finally moving forward. Although we don’t believe this year’s climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, will come up with the comprehensive final deal we need, progress can and must be made
If Europe can start taking a leading role, and if countries like the UK can get on with the practical steps needed to make the transformation to a low-carbon economy, this can only make the prospects for Cancun, and for the climate, more hopeful.
In the UK it means making sure the upcoming Energy Bill kickstarts an ambitious nationwide programme of home refurbishment – reducing wasted energy from poorly insulated houses – and puts limits on carbon emissions from power stations.
We also need to see massive investment in renewable energy and low-carbon infrastructure. Another article in today’s FT set alarm bells ringing on the investment front, suggesting the government might shelve its plans to use proceeds from selling off assets to invest in a green investment bank.
So, it looks like one step forward and potentially another step back. I’d say Chris Huhne needs to make sure his colleagues at the UK treasury have read his article, and they start taking the economic arguments seriously. We need to invest in a low-carbon future – now!
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