No EU country is calling the Union’s 2030 climate goals into question – as ratification of the Paris Agreement by 19 member states, including Poland (on 6 October), before COP 22 demonstrates. And environment ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday 17 October bore further witness.
It will, however, be difficult for the member states to agree on how effort is to be shared in order to achieve the collective reduction of 30% in greenhouse gas emissions in sectors not covered by the ETS (transport, construction, agriculture, forestry and the LULUCF sector).
Ministers held their first policy debate in Luxembourg on Monday 17 October on the two proposals put forward on 20 July – the draft regulation on effort sharing and the draft regulation specifically referring to the LULUCF sector (EUROPE 11598) – highlighted the temptation for a number of member states to re-open the Pandora’s box of figures that were assigned to them as binding targets. This is a temptation being felt by most of the Central and Eastern European countries and by Finland, which has called for accompanying measures or, at least, greater account taken of specific national circumstances, in particular in the draft LULUCF regulation, of those countries with large forested areas.
In their responses to a questionnaire put to them by the Slovak Presidency, all acknowledged that the Commission proposals formed a sound basis for negotiation and that full use must be made of the flexibility mechanisms as they reflect the desire for a high level of cost effectiveness and fairness between member states, in line with the guidelines of the October 2014 European Council. That said, most countries are of the view that, at this preliminary stage of the debate, significant improvement should be brought to the proposals before any commitments on timescale can be made.
Only Sweden, the United Kingdom, Portugal and the Netherlands have answered the call launched by France, in its role as the President of COP 21, to make it clear now that they agree that these proposals provide a good basis for the continuation of negotiations so that political agreement might be reached as early as the Environment Council on 19 December. The UK minister stressed how important it was to set a good pace for the process and not to unravel the October 2014 European Council guidelines on which the two proposals are based. The Portuguese minister said that there should be no shilly-shallying on “points of detail”, that there was no need to pull back, but that there had to be “due diligence. The Paris Agreement is a challenge, not an obstacle”.
The most critical and most reticent countries are Poland and Italy.
“The proposals on non-ETS effort sharing and on the LULUCF sector will mean it is possible to meet the commitments made in the Paris Agreement, which will come into force at the start of November thanks to the efforts made by you all”, said Council President Lazlo Solymos at the start of the debate.
Following the discussions, which he preferred not to summarise as what had been said was primarily focused on specific concerns linked to national circumstances, Solymos gave assurances that the Presidency would assess all the political comments. “I’m counting on your support and your constructive cooperation so that a general approach can be agreed in December”, he stated.
Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete said that the proposals on the table offered “good cost-effectiveness” and formed “a sound basis for a good agreement between the joint legislators”. The European Council would, he said, “conduct its own assessment next spring”.
Speaking first, COP 21 President Ségolène Royal called on her colleagues to show their willingness to make progress. “We are in an exceptionally auspicious situation. The ratification instruments were collectively deposited on 4 October. The Paris Agreement will come into effect on 4 November. In between times, we have had the Kigali Agreement on HFCs and the ICAO agreement. Effort sharing will not be easy to agree but people are looking to us. Investors are expecting a strong signal”, she stated, calling on her colleagues to “formally state that the figures table provides a sound basis” and “that, on 19 December at the latest, the Environment Council will finalise today’s discussion to make clear to all our political determination”.
Effort sharing. Many countries (Denmark, Italy, Poland, Hungary and all the economic convergence countries, like Croatia and Romania) criticised the starting point for reducing emissions by 2030 (average emissions for the period from 2016 to 2018), which takes no account of efforts already made and penalises those countries which have already achieved or are well on the way to achieving their 2020 target (see EUROPE 11600). Germany stressed the importance of parallel negotiations on the ETS and the non-ETS sectors, describing this as a “precondition for political integrity”.
It is “for the member states to determine the way to establish when the linear trajectory should begin”, argued Lithuania.
“We are against confirming target levels as France has asked. We have doubts over the objectives and the methodology. There has to be thorough discussion. It is not possible for the assigned targets to be made binding from today. We must not lose sight of what will be done between now and 2020”, stated the Polish minister, unhappy that his country has been assigned a 7% reduction in its emissions by 2030.
Denmark said that it was deeply concerned that the Commission had “not taken into account of the limited potential of cost reduction and of the efforts (it had) already made”.
Italy, too, is very concerned by the target set for it, when it is the country which “most closely complies with the 2020 objectives and is among the countries with the lowest emissions and has the highest share of renewable energy”, the minister made clear. He added that “the Commission proposal does not reflect the principle of fairness and the per capita emission convergence. We are troubled by the effort sharing methodology”.
Seeking to pour oil on troubled waters, Belgium said that it, too, had “little enthusiasm” for the targets but “effort is determined by the final goal, the starting point and what flexibilities exist”, it said.
LULUCF. The main forested countries (Finland, Austria, Latvia, Czech Republic and Slovenia) felt the LULUCF flexibility will not allow them to take fresh action and were deeply critical that the management/sustainable exploitation of forests cannot be taken into account in the LULUCF sector. They want forestry to be included in the flexibilities so that the ability of forests to absorb CO² can be taken into account (they want the net reduction due to forestry to be counted). Estonia stressed the need for agreement on how to calculate greenhouse gas emissions in the agriculture and forestry sectors. Denmark argued that, as this sector had limited emissions reduction potential, credit carryover should be possible. Ireland, a highly agricultural country, is delighted with the LULUCF flexibility.
Some member states, such as Luxembourg and Sweden, called for a review clause along the same lines as the one contained in the Paris Agreement (every five years).
Some have concerns over the methodology used to calculate the LULUCF flexibility cap (280 million tonnes over the whole period).
While the LULUCF flexibility is designed with the largely agricultural countries in mind, Italy regrets that there is not something more or an incentive for countries which have better agricultural management. It said that account has to be taken of the absolute contribution of all the member states and that the full inclusion of LULUCF emissions/absorption is important for achieving the targets, as is a robust verification and reporting system.
Germany said that it would study the proposal to ensure that there is no conflict with protecting biodiversity.
Clearly, ministers and the Slovak Presidency will have their work cut out in making progress on this issue. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)