20% is the limit of ambition with the EU

Following the failure of the EU’s policy at COP15 - where there was no agreement on binding targets of any kind, never mind enough commitment from other countries for the EU’s offer of an increased commitment to a 30% reduction – the EU has decided to stick to the 20% reduction target. Disappointed by Copenhagen, Europe appears loath to push itself any further.

Obviously this is a blow to the Green movement in Europe, and people in other countries who may have been hoping for the EU to turn up the pressure of example. Without higher binding targets, there will be a worse impact on the climate. Putting off tougher cuts, even if the EU isn’t breaking its word by doing so, the EU’s power of example diminishes, and the green movement can charge the EU with lacking leadership with a certain justification.

But the political attraction of leading by example – which is still strong in Brussels – may have lost some of its shine. The moral high ground, and the offer to take on tougher burdens than the rest of the world, not only failed to produce a deal at Copenhagen - it failed to ensure a central role for Europe in negotiations! To the EU, the failure of COP15 is no doubt a huge blow to morale, and not just in terms of climate change. During the conference, South Africa had greater diplomatic access and importance at points, and to a regional bloc with concerns over its global position and that prided itself on moral leadership on this issue, the marginalisation was devastating.

If offers of greater targets and a past track record on environmental legislation got the EU no respect and little influence, then Greenpeace’s claims that moving to 30% on existing commitments as the only way of reviving talks loose their force. The question is: why should we? We’ve tried that approach.

The 30% offer was conditional, and a diplomatic tool, and as such future offers could loose their force if other countries thought that the EU would continue to forge ahead on its own whether they tagged along or not. It may dismay advocates of greater action, but the more realist diplomatic arguments may sound more convincing in Brussels in the post-COP15 world.

Will a more hard-headed negotiating approach help lead to setting down more binding global cuts, or is it just a diplomatic sulk that won’t achieve anything?

Cross-posted on Think About It!

Think2 Post: "ENVI: The Road to Copenhagen #1"

I've just posted on the Th!nk About It site on the debates on the EU's strategy at the Copenhagen Conference here. If you want to comment, please comment on the Think2 platform.

ENVI, the Environment Committee of the European Parliament yesterday adopted a draft resolution on the Copenhagen Conference. As the centre of environmental politics in the most democratic institution of the European Union - an organisation that's supposed to be leading the world when it comes to climate change issues - how is ENVI doing?


The Debate:


The Committee debated how the EU should approach the Conference in December on September 30th, in advance of yesterday's vote (video link*). The debate followed pretty established lines: questions of upper targets, of tax and financing, technology transfer, balance between the north and south, and relations between the developed and developing world.

There was quite a lot of debate on the simple question of targets. Originally, there was an upper target band of 25-40% in reductions in CO2 emissions, an upper target clearly dreamt up purely to try and satisfy the opposing opinions within the chamber, but which worryingly could lend a legitimacy to moves to backtrack on commitment to a 30% reduction later on. Thankfully, many MEPs argued that the upper limit should be set at a 40% reduction - in fact, some MEPs were pushing for a minimum 40% with extra funding for climate change measures in the developing world. Such radical measures were always unlikely to pass, and unfortunately there was a degree of inevitable pontificating over some obvious arguments on targets: they should be realistic in order to be credible, there must be a clear plan and stages behind them, etc.

Indeed, while it was important to have this debate, it was disappointing in how simplistic the debate was - MEPs chipping in on the old, well-trodden issues of historical responsibility for emissions and responsibility to act, the question of what degree of technology transfer and wealth transfer is politically possible and practically effective, enforcing the proper use of wealth transfers, the role of the US (how far can we lead, and how necssary the US is), "realism" in international relations versus the "idealism" of combating climate change, transport and trade, etc. There is a wealth of issues behind each of these topics to be debated and addressed, yet the Committee lapsed into simplistic idealistic appeals and statements-of-position. To a certain degree this is inevitable in any case - MEPs have to represent the positions of their parties and the concerns of their constituents, and many of the points made were very good, and needed to be made or re-made to highlight the necessity of rising to the climate challenge and the direction of the commitments already made. However, the political effect of the draft is lessened by the lack of detail and a lack of scrutiny of the Parliament's own commitment to tackling climate change.

What would I have liked to have seen from the debate?

Well, since the measure being debated is a resolution, I think the Parliament should have focused on how it could add political force to its argument. Resolutions are non-binding political statements, but they shouldn't be treated as an opportunity to air positions or tack on radical arguments that the Parliament may not be able or willing to support in practice. The Committee should have focused more on the areas of environmental legislation that the European Parliament would be looking to tighten up or create in the event of a good deal.** It would be too much to ask for consensus on legislative questions on measures that aren't before the Parliament, but areas should have been highlighted where the Committee would be willing to act more radically.

If this had been done (and some of these questions were touched on, but only touched on), the Committee would have been able to produce a much more politically effective resolution. In the US it's been noted that the Congress is slowing down a domestic climate change deal, so in order to be more effective, the Committee should have been clearer on the role it would play to push for environmental measures combating climate change: with a clear position of support for action from the Parliament, the Commission and EU as a whole would be strengthened in its negotiating position, as it would show that the EU would be coming to the Conference with a strong domestic consensus behind it; that the EU would be capable of delivering on its promises.

It would also boost the Committee's own credibility when it meets with its US counterpart at the end of the month (27th-29th October).



*I couldn't insert the link for some reason, so here's the long version: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/wps-europarl-internet/frd/vod/player?eventCode=20090930-0900-COMMITTEE-ENVI&language=en&byLeftMenu=researchcommittee&category=COMMITTEE&format=wmv

**The Parliament has no legislative initiative power, but it can request draft legislation from the Commission, and show a commitment to positively ammending all relavent legislation put before it. It would also enbolden the Commission to be more radical on climate change, or ensure that it maintains its commitments.

Copenhagen and my first Think2 Post

I've just taken part in the Th!nk2 launch event in Copenhagen, which was brilliant - talks, travel, discussing climate change, meeting fellow bloggers, and whiskey, all compressed into 2 and 1/2 days. The first day took place mainly in the Bella Centre, where the COP15 conference will take place in December, and the second took place in Dyssekilde, where there's an "eco-settlement", which has been gradually built up over 20 years to be as sustainable and as environmentally friendly as possible - though they still have to pay tax, as some were disappointed to discover.

We also recorded the first official Th!nkCast, which I took part in, though it still has to go through the editing process.

So the new Th!nk blog is up, suitabily redesigned for the climate change theme, and I've entered my first post on the Emissions Trading Scheme and yesterday's court judgment. Link.

First ThinkCast

The Think2 blogging community has started up over on the Think About It website, and we've decided to set up a Think2 podcast. It will launch officially in the third week of September with a special launch event podcast from Copenhagen, but in the meantime there will be 3 "preview" podcasts before then. Each podcast will feature a different group of around 5 ThinkCasters, since we got a great response to the podcasting idea. The first was recorded on Saturday and has now been published online.

The first podcast is about blogging, its impact and its future/purpose; you can find it here.

The Group includes:

Domen (the Host),
Hai,
Adela,
Frederico,
and me.

Hope you like it.

On Phone Chargers

The EU has managed to get the top 10 mobile phone companies to agree to adopt a single phone charger that will be compatible across their brands. The companies include:

"...Apple, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson – [and they] represent 90 percent of Europe's mobile phone market."

The story has been covered by Stephen Spillane and Gulf Stream Blues.

There will be no legislation to enforce this; the move is an agreement between the companies and it won't be enforceable in law. However, the agreement only came about when the EU applied pressure by threatening to introduce legislation in this area - which would probably pass in the Council and the European Parliament, just like the roaming charge cap.

The benefits of such a move will be mostly environmental, since there will be less electrical waste of old, incompatible chargers being thrown away, but there will also be benefits to the consumer in terms of convenience.

Dave Keating at Gulf Stream Blues touched on what could be one of the most interesting aspects of this story as it (might) develop:

"Since most of these companies also design phones in the US and the rest of the world, I would assume that this standardization will eventually spread to the rest of the world. After all, why would they make phones with different electrical input jacks specifically for Europe?"

If the single charger is adopted by these companies outside of the EU, it will demonstrate the economic power that comes with the single market. As the economy globalises, it's likely that market access will become more essential in the calculations of the economic and political consequences of regulation. The bigger the market, the more insulated that market is from the negative economic effect of regulation: so it's easier for big markets such as the EU to set higher standards than small (and sometimes even medium) states as the relative economic power of big companies is reduced when they want to ensure they have market access.

Not that the EU should go mad regulating, and I'm not denying that EU regulation can have negative effects on the economy - it all depends on the regulation, and views on particular examples of regulation will vary depending on political priorities. But the single market enables states to re-assert (some of) their political power and relevance at a time when economic power is growing and limiting the political options of states.

Another thing to note is that the Tories in the EP have welcomed this new move:

"British Conservative MEP Malcolm Harbour, member of the consumer affairs committee in the European Parliament, also welcomed the agreement.

"The days of drawers full of useless old mobile phone chargers will soon be over. Common sense has prevailed," Mr Harbour stated.

"We will no longer have to worry about forgetting our chargers and having to ask around to find one that is compatible. This agreement will also encourage more chargers to be recycled, preventing electronic waste," he added."

Perhaps an attractive aspect of this deal for the Conservatives is that it was reached without any actual legislation (though it's still strange to hear the Tories hailing a European move as a victory for "common sense"), but it shows that there is recognition in the Conservative party that the single market is worth something as a working reality, and not just a free-market ideal to pay lip-service to - and what's more, there's a recognition that common rules/policies mean something.

Now it could easily be countered that the Tories could hardly mean anything else when they say they support the single market as you can't have a single market without common rules. Still, the recent political message of the Conservatives gives a different impression. If the Tories are serious about this new group, and are serious about the single market, they will have to show in their rhetoric that some decisions need to be made in Brussels. They also need - and this is a big step that they might never take - to accept that it follows that there should be some form of political contest in the EU, since the question of economic governance is a left-right issue. They will have to accept the value of politics while (if they remain committed to the ECR) rejecting political union itself.

A coherent political vision from the ECR will probably never occur to anyone within the group, let alone see the light of day, yet that is what they'll need if they don't want to be outflanked by withdrawlists and if they wish to avoid being cornered into policies that will weaken the single market itself. In other words, their political group at the very least needs to get political. Politics isn't bad, you know.