Embed Doc
Copy Link
Readcast
Collections

CommentGo Back

Download

G L O B E

GLOBE EU

and Climate Change

2005/2009

2 / GLOBE EU and Climate Change, 2005/2009

Introduction

Shortly after GLOBE legislators at the Eu-ropean Parliament re-launched GLOBE EUfollowing the European elections of 2004,GLOBE EU, together with GLOBE Interna-tional, organized a conference in London inthe run-up to the G-8 Summit in Gleneaglesin June 2005 in order to help reintegrate theUS with the other seven G8 nations – France,Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and theUnited Kingdom, which had all ratied theKyoto Protocol and had committed to reduc-ing their CO

emissions by 2010-12.In parallel, meanwhile, the EU acceleratedwork on its own domestic climate and energypolicies, taking the lead globally on adoptingrelatively ambitious reduction targets andmeasures. Against this background, GLOBE EUhas been instrumental in shaping the EU’s do-mestic climate change policies and has active-ly developed a whole range of climate changerelated activities on the European scene.The Climate and Energy Package was pre-sented by the European Commission on 23 January 2008. All the institutions had tocommit to nalising the package at 1

read-ing in the December 2008 Plenary, becauseof the need to have an EU position nalisedin time and ahead of the nal rounds of apost-2012 climate agreement in Copenha-gen this December. The intervening EuropeanParliament elections and new Commissionappointments made the issue all the morepressing. Controversially, these timelines didnot allow for a 2

reading agreement beforeDecember 2009.Following protracted and contentious politi-cal debate at Committee and political Grouplevel, the environmental ambition and thearchitecture of the package was by andlarge maintained. However, the nal agree-ment included a number of concessionsboth to industry and Member States – suchas allowing greater off-sets than originallyplanned and postponing full auctioning ofemission permits – which made the decisionless ambitious than hoped for. The mandatefor the package was derived from the Euro-pean Council’s political endorsement (at itsHeads of States’ summit in the Spring of2007) of the target of a 20% reduction inCO

emissions from industry + powergen(through emissions trading) and MemberStates (via the Effort Sharing or non-ETStargets). The process for stepping up to thegreater ambition levels that the EU hascommitted to, provided a global agreementis reached, (at least -30% cap) was alsoagreed at that Summit.GLOBE EU members played a prominent rolein all the dossiers included in the Package,representing the EP as rapporteurs or shadowrapporteurs in negotiations with the Council

3 / GLOBE EU and Climate Change, 2005/2009

and the Commission. Without the pro-activeinvolvement of Globe EU members in thenegotiations, the outcome would no doubthave been even less ambitious in terms ofclimate change mitigation (reference is madeto special appendix for details).In addition, since 2005 GLOBE EU has beeninvolved in a whole range of climate-relatedbriengs and events involving EU institutions,companies, a range of NGOs, sustainabilitythink tanks such as the UK Climate Trust, theClimate Group, E3G and the Tällberg Foun-dation, international organizations, notablyUNEP, IUCN and WTO, as well as scientistsand academics. This note just provides a briefsummary of the key issues.Specic issues where GLOBE EU has beenparticularly active include:

●

“Greening the ESS” Series (2005-2008).This campaign on climate and EU foreignpolicy, in co-operation with the Institutefor Environmental Security (IES), resultedin the integration of climate into the EU’sCFSP at the European Council, December2008 and is expected to be taken up at theNATO Summit in April.

●

Establishment of GLOBE EU Biofuels Work-ing Group (2006-2007),which developed theEP’s thinking on sustainability criteria. Thesewere included in the RES Directive adoptedin December 2008. The EP adopted GLOBEEU MEP Dorette Corbey’s report on the “FuelQuality Directive” in December 2008.

●

Campaign for banning energy inefcientlight bulbs. This was part of ongoing effortsto strengthen implementation of the ECO-Design Directive, with Globe EU memberPeter Liese in a lead role.

●

Sustainable Production and ConsumptionSeries (2006-2008),resulting in the currentSustainable Production and ConsumptionAction Plan of July 2008, to be implement-ed through proposed pieces of legislationsuch as the extension of the Eco-DesignDirective, the revision of the Ecolabel Regu-lation, the revision of the EMAS Regulation,the revision of the Energy Labelling Direc-tive, and a Communication on Green Pub-lic Procurement. Still pending are concreteproposals, promoting resource efciencyand eco-innovation; GLOBE EU has organ-ised numerous workshops on sustainableproduction and consumption with activeparticipation from many of its members.GLOBE EU members Anders Wijkman, SatuHassi, Gyula Hegyi and Mechthild Rothehave had key roles in the legislative work.

●

Halting global deforestation (ongoing):Re-ducing deforestation and forest degradation isan issue where many individual GLOBE mem-bers have been personally committed and in-volved. GLOBE EU has organized roundtables