On Friday, EU environment ministers will overcome divisions over the bloc’s negotiating stance on international talks to limit global warming, but are expected to warn that progress must speed up to secure a worldwide climate change deal, writes Euractiv.com.
After they meet in Brussels, ministers will announce the bloc will back targets of a global 60% emissions cut by 2050, and 100% emissions reduction by 2100, despite the initial objections of countries such as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, according to high-ranking EU sources.
The agreement is needed to ensure EU negotiators can push for a strong international framework to limit global warming to no more than two degrees higher than pre-industrial levels. The regime needs to be robust, because the chances of securing a legally binding cap on global warming at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris this November are very slim.
The US is one of two world’s largest polluters, along with China. One of the American red lines in the talks is that there is no legally binding international target. Such an international agreement would force President Barack Obama to submit the agreement to a hostile, Republican-led Congress.
Instead, the US has pushed for a system where governments put forward their own pledges to cut global warming. This has backing from countries such as China and India. How often governments will meet to report on their progress and how to ensure countries regularly step up their climate pledges are up for negotiation in Paris.
The US is pushing for five-yearly meetings on global climate change, which could clash with EU timeframes. The bloc usually sets ten year targets such as the climate goals for 2020 and 2030 and the ETS carbon market trading period is also a decade.
More problematic is ensuring that government pledges made at regular intervals increase in ambition over time. This is necessary to prevent global warming hitting two degrees, and to stop countries simply putting forward similar or weaker goals.
Draft documents for Friday’s meetings of environment ministers revealed some member states want to reword the Paris paper so it clarifies that countries with decade-long commitments still have to participate fully in the five-yearly process. Others want a no-backsliding clause inserted in the text.
Pivotal role for EU?
Liz Gallagher, head of London-based environmental think tank E3G’s climate diplomacy programme, said the EU’s role should be to “disrupt” any complacency from the US and China, the countries so far grabbing the limelight in the climate talks. Nigel Purvis, CEO of Climate Advisers, a Washington-based consultancy specializing in US climate change policy, agreed. The US has got what it wanted, Purvis said, which meant the diplomatic efforts had slackened.
Gallagher said the EU could only reclaim a leading position in the talks by building better alliances with other countries, which it could only do through offering credible financial commitments to developing countries. But draft conclusions dated 14 September for this Friday’s ministerial meeting stressed that time to do that is running out. The Council of Ministers “notes the considerable amount of work still ahead in order to reach the Paris outcome”, and is “concerned about the lack of substantial progress on the negotiating text up to now”.