Once upon a time climate action played an important role in the European Union (EU). Or rather, as Silvia Brugger from the Heinrich Boell Foundation has rightly noticed, the EU “proclaimed itself a leader in terms of global climate ambition and a champion of the low carbon economy” long enough to make the others believe it is true. Be that as it may, perceptions are changing.
Actually, it seems that the EU stopped even trying to pretend. The Bonn Climate Change Conference, which begun yesterday, is different from all previous UNFCCC intersessional negotiations in June. For the first time in history, it included two high-level ministerial sessions, which took place Thursday, continue Friday and should, as Christiana Figueres pointed out in her opening remarks, accelerate political attention to the process. All countries were specifically requested to send their environment ministers.
However, from 28 EU member states, during today’s roundtable only two ministers (from Estonia and Greece, which holds the rotating presidency) – besides Marcin Korolec, Polish Government Plenipotentiary for Climate Policy and a co-chair of the session as the COP 19 President – were present. Tomorrow, except for Barbara Hendricks (German Federal Environment Minister) and Connie Hedegaard (EU Climate Commissioner), no other minister is expected. This very poor attendance at a meeting taking place in Europe – with many ministers from developing countries like Marshall Islands, Burkina Faso or the Philippines – shows the low level of engagement of EU member states in the UN process.
Moreover, this bad impression was not made better by an announcement from EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, saying this week that “the EU will substantially over-achieve” its targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. As Asad Rehman, Head of International Climate at Friends of the Earth EWNI, soberly noticed – the closer you look, the less impressive the result:
Analysis by the Climate Action Tracker helps paint a more complete picture. Their science-based assessment, which tracks country’s emission reduction commitments, broke down the EU’s 20 per cent reduction target. Compared to what countries should be doing, 20 per cent places the EU in the worst range on the scale. Even its conditional objective of 30 per cent would be only rated as “medium”, with – for comparison – South Korea, Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica, and Norway rated as “sufficient”. The EU be more ambitious by setting fair goals for 2030. Unfortunately, the member states are still split by the Commission’s proposal for a wholly inadequate 40 per cent cut of carbon emissions by 2030 and some countries hesitation to adopt any targets at all. Furthermore, the EU has postponed their decision on a 2030 target until October. That means our European governments head to the September Climate Leaders Summit empty-handed.
Will we have to, as Christoph Bals from Germanwatch suggested yesterday, “get used to the idea that we are losing our position as leaders in the international climate debate”?
Come on, Europe, you can do better than that!
Photo Credit: Climate Action Tracker and Niccolo Caranti via Flickr
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