EU Working To Cut Emissions For Ships And Planes
Posted on: Thursday, 22 October 2009, 07:10 CDT
On Wednesday, European environment ministers started making progress in their plans to cut back on carbon emissions, particularly with planes and ships.
They came to an agreement during a meeting in Luxembourg where the European Union was just short of committing to begin working toward a goal of slashing overall emissions by 95 percent, rather than the previous 80 percent, by 2050.
A proposal to push for a cut in airliners’ emissions by 10 percent and those of ships by 20 percent by 2020 was also approved.
Between the two growing sectors, they account for about 5 percent of all carbon emissions.
However, several officials commented that there is dialogue about how to deal with carbon credits, considering unused quotas held by the European Union's newest members.
It basically came down to being almost a repeat of Tuesday's arguments that set nine, primarily eastern EU countries headed by Poland, against wealthier, western countries who wanted to commit to concrete offers of financial assistance for developing nations as they approach the December UN negotiations in Copenhagen.
Without finance ministers coming to an agreement over either overall figures or how to distribute the burden meant the talks between environment ministers were effectively sidelines, according to Belgium's Paul Magnette.
"The Swedish presidency dragged out an agreement for the sake of the environment council's credibility…but it was based on (watered-down) compromises," he said.
Billions of tons of CO2 polluting rights, theoretically worth tens of billions of dollars, are now available and are mostly held by Russia and nearby eastern nations that were added to the EU in 2004.
A European Commission official cautioned that if the surplus emissions rights be prolonged through the 2013-2020 period following the expiration date of the global Kyoto protocol on fighting global warming, Russia and some of the other countries might not be required to cut their actual emissions.
An agreement will have to be brokered among EU leaders on the critical financing part during a Brussels summit next week.
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Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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