Ecology, Energy, EU – Baltic States, Legislation

International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Thursday, 28.03.2024, 18:55

Poland: stricter European carbon goal depends on global action

Petras Vaida, BC, Vilnius, 01.02.2012.Print version
A potential European Union move to a stricter emissions-reduction goal is conditional on efforts by non-EU nations to cut greenhouse gases, a Polish government official was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.

Poland maintains its position that the EU agreed to lower pollution by 20% by 2020 from 1990 levels and that deepening the goal to 30% "is conditional on comparable moves by other countries," said Zbigniew Kamienski, deputy director at the economic development department of Poland's Economy Ministry, writes LETA.

"As we know, this is not the case now," he said in an interview in Warsaw today during a climate conference.

The costs of tightening the EU's carbon-reduction target are less than previously estimated, an analysis by the European Commission, the bloc's regulatory arm, showed yesterday. A 30% goal would involve cutting greenhouse gases by 25% domestically and using imported emissions-reduction credits to account for the remaining 5%.

The analysis, requested by governments, came as environmental lobbies and companies including Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) Plc urge the EU to adopt a more ambitious climate goal and curb the supply of allowances in the EU emissions-trading system, the world’s largest, after prices slumped to a four-year low last year.

EU environment ministers are due to discuss the analysis when they next meet on March 9.

"We have a lot of doubts concerning the cost analysis presented by the European Commission as we have no access to the analytical model, which is protected by copyright," Kamienski said.

Member states remain divided on whether to raise the stringency of the EU's climate policies, a step that would cost the bloc a total of 70 billion euros, according to the analysis.

The cost of moving to a 30% emissions-reduction target in 2020 would range from ten euros per capita in the Czech Republic to 136 euros in Luxembourg, according to the EU document. Four out of 27 nations in the bloc, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria and Romania, may make a profit of 7 euros to 54 euros per capita, it showed.

While western European countries have voiced support for tighter pollution caps on companies, eastern nations, led by Poland, have in previous years tended to favor a more cautious approach and said a more ambitious target could hurt their economic competitiveness.

The commission analysis is in the form of a strategy paper to be presented to member states for consideration and does not constitute a legislative proposal. Denmark, which holds the bloc's rotating presidency, vowed to stimulate a debate on the EU long-term carbon goals at the March meeting of environment ministers.

"We can't treat it as economically beneficial while yesterday's analysis raises a lot of doubts," Kamienski said.






Search site