New climate change targets announced by the European Union are
a major step backwards and virtually end any chance of keeping global warming
below 2ºC. They are the result of pressure from governments desperate for
growth, whatever the cost environmentally.
Naturally, that’s not how the EU is putting it but the
reaction from business on the one hand and climate change campaigners on the
other says it all. EU officials talked up the agreement to cut greenhouse gas
emissions by 40% below the 1990 level by 2030, claiming this puts Europe at the
forefront of action on global warming.
But they are not fooling anyone. The Financial Times reports the announcement as a major step back from
the "ambitious environmental agenda that made the EU a global green
leader" adding that it is all about "the need for economic growth and
industrial competitiveness".
Officials spoke excitably about a binding agreement to
produce 27% of European energy from renewables by 2030. But Europe already
reached 22% renewables in 2012. They are saying that in the next 17 years,
Europe will achieve the same percentage increase in renewable
energy that was reached in the five years from 2007 to 2011. Germany could
practically reach that on its own, with its current programme of replacing
nuclear with renewables.
Britain's energy and climate change minister Ed Davey fought
hard to prevent even that weak ambition. He didn't want any binding agreements
at all because his ConDem government has withdrawn support for renewables in
favour of fracking for gas. He got his way because each country is left to work
out its own renewables target.
Just to reinforce what the energy commissioner called the
need for “mainstream competitiveness”, the EU – under UK pressure – has backed off
from any regulation of fracking. As the Financial
Times noted, the announcement “in effect gives the green light for shale
exploration throughout the region”.
The Climate Action
Network (CAN), a coalition of more than 120 environmental groups, said the
agreement "could lock the EU into such a low level of climate action it
would make keeping the EU's international pledge to stay below 2 degrees of
global warming all but unattainable".
The most disgraceful response came from the UK's energy
generators who want the government to use it as a basis for reducing the UK's
own internal emissions target from its current 50% by 2030 level.
The
industry’s trade body stated: "It has been clear for a while that
others in Europe have little appetite to match the UK’s binding 50% target and
this announcement merely serves as confirmation. Government must ...bring the
UK back in line with Europe and send a clear signal that it is committed to
ensuring the UK will remain a competitive place to invest through the 2020s."
These targets have nothing to do with climate science. They reflect
life in the bubble of unreality where corporations and states live, and where
nothing matters except growth, competition and profits. Governments will not
act to halt climate change because the corporations will not allow them to even
if the political will existed (which it doesn’t).
Today's deal is what Europe will put on the table at
international climate talks in Paris in 2015. Connie Hedegaard, the European
Commissioner for climate action, claimed: "We have made it possible for EU
to play its role to the full..."
Europe's weak targets and failure to consider energy saving
or even the regulation of fracking, sets the tone for a summit that will - like
the previous summits - fail to act. It will become a game of "how low can
you go" in capitalism’s race to the bottom on climate action.
Penny Cole
Environment editor
