By Céline Serrat — The 28-member European Union, the third-largest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases after China and the United States, has long been held up as the poster child of efforts to save Earth’s climate. But after years of taking the lead in talks for a global climate pact and making tough policy and investment choices to lessen fossil fuel reliance at home, the bloc’s resolve now seems to be flagging, analysts say.Europe is responsible for about 10 per cent of global emissions. As the world’s nations meet in Bonn to negotiate a rulebook for executing the climate-rescue Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015 to limit emissions from burning oil, coal, and gas, here is a look at Europe’s role.
Having been at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution that sparked the large-scale carbon dioxide pollution of Earth’s atmosphere now blamed for global warming, Europe took the lead hundreds of years later in shifting to cleaner energy generated by sources such as the Sun, waves and wind.
It was instrumental in passing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement’s predecessor, despite opposition from the US and other developed countries.
Europe also created the first carbon market in a bid to incentivise companies to pollute less.
The Emissions Trading System limits emissions and allows companies to trade in allowances not used.
The carbon market, which covers about 40 per cent of Europe’s industrial emissions, has proven ineffective, critics say, and needs urgent reform.
Carbon allowances were too generous, resulting in a carbon price too low to encourage savings.
The bloc also took on emissions-cutting targets that analysts say are too low to stay under the ceiling for average global warming set in the Paris pact — no more than two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.
The EU pledged to reduce its own emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 over 1990 levels — a goal it is on course to exceed.
With three years to go, the target has already been met even if five countries —Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and Ireland — are not on track to achieve their national goals.
The European Environment Agency expects the bloc will reach 24 per cent in 2020.
This goes to show the target was too “modest” to begin with, according to Celia Gautier of the Climate Action Network, a grouping of NGOs.
By 2020, Europe also seeks to boost energy efficiency (less fossil fuel input for the same energy output) by 20 per cent, and ensure 20 per cent of energy consumed is from renewables.
According to Eurostat, an agency of the European Commission, renewable energy consumption in Europe was already 16.7 per cent in 2014.
“In the wake of the Paris Agreement’s entry into force, the EU’s climate policy effort appears to be slowing, and it has not effectively responded” to an aspirational 1.5 C lower limit also written into the pact, according to the Climate Action Tracker (CAT), a tool created by think-tanks to measure countries’ progress.
Europe’s medium- and long-term ambitions are even more problematic.
It is targeting a 40 per cent domestic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 over 1990 levels, which the CAT says is “significantly behind what is achievable and necessary”.
According to the CAT, Europe needs to reduce emissions by about two per cent per year to achieve a 45-50-per cent cut by 2030.
But emissions are projected to slow only between 0.5 per cent and 1.3 per cent per year.
For 2050, the EU bloc has set its sights on a 80-95-per cent reduction from 1990, which the CAT says would require “significant acceleration”.
According to Climate Analytics, a policy institute, 300 coal-fired power stations have to close in Europe by 2030, if the Paris goals are to be met.— AFP
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