Tackling warming within the rules

Australian
Thursday 28/2/2008 Page: 14

THE international community has recognised the urgency and seriousness of climate change as one of the most profound challenges facing our planet. The Bali Action Plan which was agreed by 187 members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change refers explicitly to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It refers explicitly to that report is conclusion that the warming of the climate system is unequivocal." This conclusion was based on thousands of scientific studies that have observed climate-related phenomena across the world.

In the Bali Action Plan, these 187 member states have acknowledged that addressing this unequivocal warming of the planet is an urgent global priority. They also agree that deep cuts in global emissions will be required to address climate change, as well as a long-term goal for emissions reductions. The European Union has been a world leader in recognising the dire threat posed by climate change and in proposing innovative measures to tackle it.

In 2005, the EU introduced the first and still the only multi-country carbon trading scheme. In 2007 the EU already made a commitment to reduce its overall emissions by at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and to cut up to 30 per cent under a new global climate change agreement if other developed countries made comparable efforts. It has also set itself the target of increasing the share of renewable energy use by 20 per cent by 2020. On January 23, the European Commission proposed a further package of measures detailing how the EU would achieve these targets.

Among the principles to be applied, the EC considers that the costs of change and the consequences for the EU's global competitiveness, employment and social cohesion need to be considered. In releasing the package, the EC emphasised that its top priority was to obtain an international agreement on a post-Kyoto Protocol framework, working in partnership with all other members of the UNFCCC to jointly develop a robust response to the climate change challenge.

A new international agreement is in the interests not just of the EU but also of the global community, as exemplified by the Bali Action Plan. If and only if an international agreement were not achievable, the EC proposed a package of alternative measures to address climate change.

Under these proposals, a review of climate policy measures would take place in 2011 (two years after UNFCCC members have committed to concluding a global climate agreement). The EC has put a series of possible policy options on the table to be considered as part of the review, none of which, it must be said, automatically will be adopted or applied. These options include the free allocation of permits for Europe's energy-intensive industry or carbon equalisation measures such as the application of Europe's emissions trading scheme to imports in relevant sectors.

The key objective in implementing carbon equalisation measures as one of the possible options on the table would be to combat "carbon leakage", whereby EU polluting industry moves to other parts of the world where there are no emissions reductions, thus leading to a net increase in global emissions. It would do this by focusing on the imports that result from this form of activity and transfer. There is no point in imposing tough measures internally that result in emission production transferring internationally for no environmental gain. This is not intended to start a trade war, as some may think, but only to avoid the alienation by courageous measures taken by the EU and for the benefit of the world's citizens.

The EU has made clear that it remains committed to World Trade Organisation rules and any measures that are eventually introduced which depend on the outcome of international climate change negotiations and of the 2011 review will be fully compatible with such rules. The choice that is sometimes advanced between the economy and the environment in the climate change debate is a genuinely false choice. Put simply, if there is no planet, then there is no economy.

If we can avoid dangerous climate change by stabilising emissions by mid-century the imperative clearly laid out in the IPCC fourth assessment report we will not only brighten the prospects of our planet's future but we will also create new jobs in low carbon industries, which will build on present economic prosperity. The EU, working with its partners in the UNFCCC, is committed to ensuring that the future development of the planet is sustainable, in the interests of this generation and future generations.

Bruno Julien is ambassador of the EU delegation to Australia and New Zealand in Canberra.