Brussels, 17/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - In Bonn, Germany, a new round of international climate talks open on Monday 20 October, the final talks before the COP 20 in Lima, Peru, in December, which will be decisive for drawing up a new, clear draft negotiating text.
Meanwhile, preparations are intensifying in the EU to reach agreement among the member states on action to be taken by 2030 on climate and energy at the Climate and Energy European Summit on 23 and 24 October, in order for the EU to be able to send a strong signal to the international community to help reach a global climate deal in Paris in December 2015 (COP 21) that is ambitious and legally binding.
The nub of the problem is the need to strike a happy balance that satisfies all member states, reconciling their divergent levels of ambition with the varying requirements. The key aspects of any agreement are whether or not it is to be binding, how it is to be financed and how the burden is to be shared. This is tricky, but not impossible.
At the moment, the draft agreement on the negotiating table mentions a 40% reduction in emissions on the 1990 level as a joint, binding target, with at least 27% of energy coming from renewable sources as the European target and an indicative objective of 30% of energy savings, the creation of a stability reserve for the European carbon market but without mention of any date (see EUROPE/documents in today's bulletin).
The Visegrad nations - Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria - rely on coal, have low incomes and it has been known for a long time that they will not agree to a 40% emissions reduction target without compensation. They say that they will only accept an agreement if there is a fair sharing of the burden among member states and financial mechanisms are set up to support investment in the climate and energy. It remains to be seen whether the solidarity seen in the climate and energy legislation of 2009 (providing 10% of the profits from carbon auctions to countries with a GNI of 10% of the average GNI of the EU as it was in 2013) will satisfy them, along with continuation of the per-inhabitant GNP criterion for setting national emission reduction targets for sectors not covered by the EU's carbon-trading scheme, ETS, continuation of the free grants for energy-guzzling industries that are highly exposed to international competition (and therefore to carbon leakage) and the €100 million increase in the NER 300 financing programme.
The United Kingdom is ambitious when it comes to emissions reductions but is fighting hard against binding targets for energy efficiency and renewables, whereas Germany, Denmark, Greece and Luxembourg want a renewables target of at least 30%. Portugal and Sweden want a 40% renewables target. When it comes to energy efficiency, Germany, France, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Sweden want a target of at least 30%. The Czech government and recently the Dutch government say they will support the renewables and energy efficiency targets. (AN)