Brussels, 19/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - The urgent dossiers and those under construction by the European Commission to implement the Paris Agreement on the climate are many in number. They were discussed by the European Commissioner for Climate Action, Miguel Arias Cañete, and the MEPs of the committee on the environment of the Parliament, which is chaired by Giovanni La Via (EPP, Italy), in Brussels on Tuesday 19 April. Their annual exchange of views, in the framework of the structural dialogue, focused on the implementation of the Commission's working programme and priorities for 2017.
The highly anticipated proposal on burden-sharing between the member states for non-ETS sectors (transport, construction and agriculture) which are obliged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 30% between now and 2030, will be presented by the summer, along with the communication on the decarbonisation of all forms of transport and a proposal on land-use change and forestry, Cañete confirmed.
Stressing that a number of member states are reluctant to launch their procedure to ratify the Paris Agreement before they know the objectives to be assigned to them in the framework of the burden-sharing, he said that it was “unthinkable that the EU and its member states, which called for the most ambitious objectives in Paris, would not ratify the Agreement before its entry into force”.
For the road sector, the communication will deal with the decarbonisation of fuels, traffic management, taxation, intelligent systems, the effectiveness of car and lorry emissions standards and the revision of the emissions measurement testing cycles.
“We need ambitious, realistic and credible emissions standards”, the Commissioner warned.
The new emissions standards for light vehicles (private cars and light utility vehicles) will be presented in 2017. The new legislation will help to decarbonise road transport. It will be necessary to incentivise clean and smart vehicles, but also to improve the emissions testing systems to regain the trust of consumers scandalised by the fraudulent NOx emissions tests. “We are working on light vehicle tests harmonised with more realistic data on fuel consumption”, said Cañete.
The Commission is also working on a proposal, to be presented in 2017, on the control and monitoring of the CO2 emissions from heavy goods vehicles, and reflecting on setting specific objectives. “I am counting on your cooperation. With the Paris Agreement, we made a good start. If we adopt all of the legislation, it will be a genuine turning point”.
During the debate, Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (ALDE) voiced his hopes that the Commission would “actually set emissions standards for heavy goods vehicles, as China and the US already have standards for buses and wagons”.
The MEPs expressed concerns regarding the impact of the ETS reform on various sectors. Peter Liese (EPP, Germany) called for the 43% reduction of emissions planned for sectors covered by ETS not to bring about too many costs for heavy energy-consuming enterprises. He also counselled “caution for extra-European flights”, which currently enjoy a derogation to the ETS, and the agriculture sector. In the opposite corner, Mathias Groote (S&D, Germany) argued that no exceptions should be made for aviation, and that there should be “equality of treatment” between all forms of transport.
“Some people prefer a greener approach, others most of all wish to protect the sectors which are most exposed to international competition and carbon leaks. We are prepared to work with the Parliament. But putting 11,000 industrial sectors into two groups is not easy”, said the Commissioner, referring by way of example to the difficulties in classifying petrochemicals and cement. He therefore stressed that the Commission was prepared to provide technical support to study the impact of each proposal.
As regards international air transport, Cañete said that in the framework of the international negotiations at ICAO on a global market mechanism to reduce the sector's CO2 emissions, “the Commission is working with the United States and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to get results. We are also going to see China's position” (see EUROPE 11533). The timescale is a tight one, and so the Commission has already started to prepare for the revision of the ETS directive. The public consultation is underway and will run until May (EUROPE 11508). “We have to wait for the results of the general meeting of ICAO in October. The EU legislation should be adopted in co-decision by the end of March 2018. The Commission will be following the results at ICAO very closely and will make a legislative proposal. We are optimistic”, the Commissioner said.
Yannick Jadot (Greens/EFA, France) called for forestry and land-use change to continue to be a sector of its own and not be used by the member states to fudge their figures.
Expressing hopes that agriculture and the technological high-value sectors would not suffer too much from the necessary economic and ecological transformation, Mireille d'Ornano (ENL, France) invited the Commission to “rethink the impact of the regulatory framework and involve civil society so that it can be closer to economic reality”. Miguel Arias Cañete acknowledged that including agriculture in the fight against climate change was one of the problems, given its limited potential to reduce emissions. For this reason, he said, “we need flexible measures”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)