The European Union will press for ambitious reporting and monitoring of nations' pledged cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions, a lead EU negotiator told Dow Jones Newswires this week.
The European Union will press for ambitious reporting and monitoring of
nations' pledged cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions, a lead EU negotiator
told Dow Jones Newswires this week.
While the 27-nation bloc, like others, has damped expectations for achieving a
binding global climate change treaty this year at an international summit in
Copenhagen
, it
wants to work toward a more ambitious verification framework than the
Kyoto
protocol contains.
That issue presents a potential stumbling block for the negotiations. Yet the
EU maintains that any deal to minimize man's effect on global climate change
must include a strong mechanism to monitor and report on progress, said Artur
Runge-Metzger, one of the EU's lead negotiators, in an interview with Dow Jones
Newswires.
"Even out of
Copenhagen
you
need to have something that tells you: OK, how are you going to monitor and
report," Runge-Metzger said. Some technical details might need to be
negotiated next year, but "in terms of the principles, it should be pretty
clear that all of this is part of a deal in
Copenhagen
,"
he said.
Runge-Metzger still expects
Copenhagen
will
deliver a "substantive agreement," which should contain a clause
committing the parties to transposing the deal into a binding legal agreement
during 2010.
Almost 200 countries will meet Dec. 7-18 to negotiate how to limit global
warming and fight climate change by containing carbon dioxide emissions.
The EU aims to steer the
Copenhagen
talks
toward "real action" in a binding treaty.
"That means real money on the table, and it also means real commitments in
terms of emission reductions from industrialized countries and real action from
developing countries," Runge-Metzger said.
The EU committed last year to cut its own emissions by 20% of 1990 levels by
2020. It is willing to raise that target to 30%, should other countries agree
to do their part.
But expectations for the
Copenhagen
summit's likely success flagged this month. A meeting of leaders from the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, including U.S. President Barack Obama,
dropped plans to reach a binding agreement in
Copenhagen
and
instead pledged what they called a "political framework" for future
negotiations.
The EU, however, continued calling for concrete commitments from major
polluters.
"Everybody wants to see emission-reduction numbers from developed
countries; everybody wants to see major developing countries take action and
put that into an accord," Runge-Metzger said Wednesday.
Soon after the EU negotiators' comments this week, the world's two biggest
carbon dioxide emitters announced measures that have inspired new confidence
that a meaningful climate change deal can be struck.
Wednesday, the
U.S.
said
Obama will attend the summit to pledge that his country will cut greenhouse-gas
emissions 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% by 2050.
Thursday,
China
said
it would aim to cut its "carbon intensity"--the amount of greenhouse
gas it emits per unit of gross domestic product --by 40% to 45% below 2005
levels by 2020.
The
U.S.
and
Chinese proposals include some positive elements, although their targets will
disappoint some observers, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso
said in a joint statement with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. "We
hope that both the Chinese and
U.S.
indications represent the first steps towards steeper reductions," they
said.
On a global level, the proposals taking shape would commit rich countries to
CO2-emissions cuts by a specific year in the future, usually 2020. They also
would make money available to help poorer nations fight the impacts of climate
change and reduce the projected growth of their emissions. At the same time,
developing countries would commit to specific actions so they would reduce
their emissions growth.
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