Brussels, 14/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - It proved a hard slog but the Environment Council in Luxembourg on Monday 14 October finally managed to agree unanimous conclusions on the position the EU will argue at the 19th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 19, Warsaw, 11-22 December). For the most part, discussion focused on whether the conclusions should contain a timetable for more ambitious objectives to be put on the table - a timetable that Poland, which will chair COP 19, did not want before the Paris conference in 2015, at which a legally binding climate agreement including all the parties is due to be concluded so that it can come into force in 2020 (see EUROPE 10940).
Ultimately, the paragraph causing greatest friction was retained as it stood and the date of 2014 is clearly mentioned, though it has been cut from another paragraph to respond the refusal of Poland and the countries supporting it (the Visegrad countries: Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, plus Romania and Bulgaria) to see the EU table commitment other than those already made (20% reduction in emissions by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, and 30% if the other parties make similar commitments) before the EU position on the energy-climate framework for 2030 is discussed and negotiated internally.
In its conclusions, the EU calls on the Warsaw conference to agree a process for all Parties to formulate ambitious mitigation commitments for the 2015 agreement, including a timetable to prepare their proposed commitments in 2014. Only a few lines further on, however, the Council encourages all the parties to start the domestic processes immediately in order to propose commitments as soon as possible and not in 2014.
For the rest, the Council notes its concern at the latest IPCC (intergovernmental panel on climate change) and expresses the determination of the EU that COP 19 should deliver a balanced package of decisions to be able to implement those decisions already taken and bridge the gap between reduction offers on the table and what will be required to hold global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. It expresses the determination of the EU and its member states to ratify the amendment to the Kyoto Protocol introducing a second commitment period which the EU and its 28 states have already been implementing since 1 January 2013.
The Council underlines that the EU is on track to achieve its reduction target for 2020 as, in 2011, it had reduced its emissions by 18.3% compared with 1990 levels while its GDP had risen by over 40%. (AN/transl.fl)