Brussels, 15/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - EU institutions and bodies have failed to seize the opportunity to draft and implement a common policy to help meet the EU's target for 2020 of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% compared with the 1990 level, says the Court of Auditors in a report published on Wednesday 15 October (even though, after 2005, they managed to reverse the trend of increasing emissions related to their buildings).
For the European Union's climate policy to be credible, the EU institutions and bodies, as public administrations, need to be at the cutting edge in designing and implementing policies for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions (“carbon footprint”). Yet, six (European Council and Council of the EU, EU Court of Auditors, European External Action Service, European Aviation Safety Agency and European Medicines Agency) of the fifteen audited EU institutions and bodies “did not report their emissions in 2012”, the Court states. The others did not calculate or disclose the full extent of these emissions. “Consequently”, in the Court's view, “the full carbon footprint is not known and the patchy information available risks undermining the credibility of reporting and mitigation efforts”. It also notes that: - evidence that emissions caused by EU institutions and bodies as a whole have been falling exists only for energy consumption in buildings; - the overall reductions achieved so far are largely attributable to the purchase of electricity generated from renewable sources, which counts as a zero emission in carbon footprint calculations; - the EU institutions and bodies do not make full use of the environmental management tools promoted by the Commission (introduction of the European eco-management and audit scheme, EMAS, is slow: in June 2014, seven of the 15 audited EU institutions and bodies had been registered); - green procurement is treated as an option rather than an obligation and only a few institutions and bodies used it systematically.
The Court recommends that the Commission propose a common policy for reducing the carbon footprint of the EU institutions and bodies. “Such a policy should include a quantified overall reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions for the year 2030.” (LC)