European Union deliberates climate change

European Union leaders at a climate change summit in Brussels have agreed to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by the year 2020. But a consensus on a binding target for the use of renewable fuels, like wind and solar power, has yet to be reached.

The European Commission wants countries to pledge, among other things, to boost the use of renewable fuels by 20%.

German Chancellor and EU President Angela Merkel said the agreement is a massive step forward and hoped the disagreement over fixed targets for renewable energy sources could be resolved.

Some Eastern European countries who are dependent on coal and heavy industries have expressed concern at meeting the targets while European Commission President Jose Manuel Baroso has described the policies as "the most ambitious ever made".

For more on this Mubin Sa'adat spoke with Dr Karen Hussey from the Australian National University.

KH: The imposition of a mandatory target for renewable energy is obviously contentious. But you could argue that we're at a point now in the climate change debate where strong leadership is an absolute necessity. That said this is an extremely ambitious target and the magnitude of the shift required cannot be understated and it has to be said that the EU has a habit of setting ambitious targets and deadlines and then not meeting them, which does nothing ultimately for its credibility in the international system of states. And very little in terms of convincing less progressive states.

But why is it described as ambitious? What are the forces in play that will not make it feasible?

KH: You're talking about a European Union where 80 percent of its emissions are fossil fuels. So we're talking about increasing its targets to 30 percent which is a huge reduction from the amounts of energy it uses from carbon producing sources. This isn't something their going to be able to do overnight. It's going to need a very comprehensive sector specific strategy that looks at policies that can be put in place at the residential level, the industrial level, the commercial level, transport and etc. There are some out there who say it is achievable, and certainly the NGOs are saying that it's achievable and largely in terms of the energy efficiency measures.

Newer EU members like the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland oppose setting a mandatory target for the use of renewable energy sources being heavily dependent on carbon-heavy fuels like coal. Now these are countries with economies that are driven by such industries. So naturally their economies would be affected by going green to that extent. What kind of compromised solution can be reached?

KH: There are two existing that are already in place in the EU that will help them. The first is that the EU has an internal emission trading scheme which allows those less efficient in energy consumption to buy credits from their cleaner neighbors. The second consolation if you'd like for the newer member states is that under the terms of their membership, their accession to the European Union, significant financial transfers from the Western member states to the Eastern member states were put in place to help them bring their industries and technologies up to speed. So we saw large transfers of money going from west to east and consultancies and expert advice and etc. which was all designed to ease the financial burden for those economies to switch to clean energies. Together I would expect those two policies to mitigate at least some of the fears expressed.

Regardless of efforts by the EU, unless other nations guilty of greenhouse gas emissions, like the United States, China and India improve their policies we won't see much improvement would we?

KH: Good question. No doubt I think our capacity to tackle climate change relies on a global collective effort. No matter how successful the EU is it can't do it alone and the absence of a firm commitment from the US and even from my own backyard Australia, severely constrains any effort that we might put into this. If you're looking in relation to China and India though we can be somewhat more optimistic. For instance China's emission standards on new vehicles are surprisingly actually more stringent than those in the European Union. And India too is developing fairly comprehensive climate change framework. As for the US position, obviously there is a drastic turnaround from the last administration to the current administration. And I think the reasons for that are fairly well known. In essence the US uses much the same argument as Australia and that is they fear the economic costs of switching to pre-dominantly non-carbon energy sources. But I have to say I think the mood is changing in the US and certainly these commitments in recent days will be a clear message across the Atlantic that they will go it alone for as long as they have to. - SOURCE: Radio Singapore