THE CLIMATE Action Network (CAN) has called on EU leaders, who meet in Brussels today, to close a “dangerous loophole” that could undermine the environmental integrity of any deal at December’s UN climate change conference in Copenhagen.
CAN yesterday published a report from Point Carbon, a leading think tank, warning that the insistence by central and eastern European countries – including Russia – on “banking” surplus credits for greenhouse gas emissions could lead to collapse.
The report was referring to the thorny issue of AAUs (assigned amount units), amounting to an estimated nine billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, built up by these countries as a result of the failure of their Soviet-style economies, and known as colloquially as “hot air”.
“Because of all this ‘hot air’, combined with current weak reduction pledges by developed countries, we will only see a negligible decrease in emissions after 2012”, when the first phase of the Kyoto protocol is due to run out, said Matthias Duwe, CAN’s director for Europe.
The Point Carbon report notes that 147 million AAUs have been contracted in the carbon market so far, with a further 50 million to 60 million AAUs reported to be under negotiation. The largest sellers have been the Czech Republic and Ukraine, with Japan as the biggest buyer.
“However, the scale of the surplus in the Kyoto period and the ability for them to be banked has implications for the effectiveness of the targets to reduce emissions by 2020 currently under negotiation . . . A politically negotiated outcome may well be beyond the parties,” it says.
The report concludes that reduction targets on the table for Copenhagen, in combination with surplus emission rights left over from the Kyoto period, would result in only a 1 per cent additional decrease in emissions over what was agreed in Kyoto 12 years ago.
Carrying over emissions rights from 2012 to 2020 would result in a total emissions decrease of only 6 per cent, in sharp contrast with the 25 per cent to 40 per cent reductions scientists say are required for this period to avoid dangerous climate change, Mr Duwe said.
“European leaders must now step up and close this dangerous loophole as part of their negotiating mandate for Copenhagen. We also urge EU leaders to raise the ambition of their current weak 20 per cent emissions reduction target to a level consistent with the latest climate science.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of miniature tents sprang up in Dublin, Brussels, London, Berlin and Madrid yesterday “to show EU heads of state and government what is at stake should they fail to agree a position on climate financing when they meet in Brussels”, Oxfam said.
The tents are intended to “offer a glimpse of the future if people in poor countries – already suffering the effects of climate change – are not given enough new public money to protect themselves now”. Oxfam estimates that the EU needs to provide €35 billion a year in new aid.
Jim Clarken, chief executive of Oxfam Ireland, said: “It’s time for Ireland and other EU member states to deliver on climate justice. We need to see a declaration of serious political will from EU leaders, putting specific commitments of new money on the table.”