At the EU Summit in Brussels last week, leaders from across the European Union convened to discuss matters of importance for the progression of the European Union, and to the benefit of the world as a whole. One of the main issues on the agenda was Climate Change, and the struggle to reach an agreement about this vital matter will be the main focus for this edition of The Green Issue.
The Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrick Reinfeldt, urged EU leaders to agree to a fixed amount of money that should be spent in order to help poorer countries to combat global warming. It is hoped that, by pledging a fixed sum, the EU can then urge other countries, such as the US and Japan, to also make significant financial pledges in the bid to fight climate change. The decision on the climate change pledge needed to be made ahead of the UN conference in Copenhagen in December; it is here that the EU will make their financial pledge and hope that other nations follow.
The issue of how much money should be pledged towards this fund quickly, however, became a wrangle as nine poorer EU countries battled against inclusion in the policy. This coalition of nine European nations was threatening to block the deal unless the richer EU nations were made to pay more. It does seem somewhat nonsensical that EU countries such as Bulgaria and Latvia are considerably poorer than, for example, Brazil, yet they would still be expected to pledge financial assistance to help Brazil adjust to climate change.
These, mostly Eastern European, countries maintain that each country should be allowed to contribute according to their means and ability to pay, not in direct correlation to how much pollution they create; after all, the deal itself is designed to help poorer countries to adjust to climate change, why should this just be true for non-EU states?
If the money pledged is to help poorer countries to come to terms with the effect climate change has on commerce and their economy surely EU members have no less right to this aid than those countries not in the European Union.
The draft of the proposal appears to recognise the coalitions’ concerns, maintaining that EU contributions for developing countries should take in to account the ability of EU member states to pay using an “internal adjustment mechanism”. It is not clear, however, if ability to pay or CO2 emissions will be more heavily weighted in the equation.
The EU is committed to cutting carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 and says that if other countries join them that this figure could rise to up to 30%. Both EU leaders and the European Commission agree that a realistic figure that should be pledged in order to help poor countries fight climate change is in the region of 100 billion Euros by 2020; made up of EU nations paying 15 billion Euros a year to developing nations, from 2013.
There is no doubt that the EU is more committed than ever to help fight climate change, but it is necessary for the richer nations to not alienate the poorer states within the EU; otherwise any such motions could be blocked and never get off the ground. It is definitely the case that the issue of climate change needs to gain momentum ahead of the UN conference in Copenhagen and by laying such a pledge on the table, the EU could just be the ones to push this issue forward.
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