E.U. Seeks to Regain Influence on Response to Climate Change
2010-01-19 from:SGW author:Paul Taylor
It argues that Europe would gain more leverage by deciding to levy a carbon tax on imports from countries that apply lower emissions standards.
That too is not going to happen.
The European Commission's designated trade negotiator, Karel de Gucht, warned in the past week that such action could set off a global trade war.
"It's an approach that will run into many practical problems," he said at a European Parliament confirmation hearing. "The big risk is that there will be slippage into a trade war, with people outbidding each other on such measures."
China might retaliate by imposing its own carbon tariff, calculated by emissions per capita, which are much higher in the industrialized world than in its emerging economy.
Since the E.U. looks unlikely to wield either a bigger carrot or a bigger stick, it is left with more mundane options: improving its negotiating methods; working more actively with China and other emerging powers and with the United States; and meeting its own reduction targets.
"Whatever happens in the global process, we will deliver on our commitments," Mr. Barroso told the research group conference. "It would be a complete mistake, because of the disappointment in Copenhagen, to abandon all our targets now."
The loss of economic output since 2008 will make it easier for the E.U. to reach its 20-20-20 goals, as they are known.
E.U. officials are looking to use every avenue to work with Brazil, South Africa, India and China — the so-called Basic countries — on climate mitigation.
Away from the sound-bite diplomacy, those countries are eager to draw on European experience in developing a low-carbon economy, administering emissions quotas and carbon trading.
Insiders say the E.U. will seek to use informal bodies like the Major Economies Forum and the Group of 20 to make progress in fighting climate change because the unwieldy U.N. framework can too easily be blocked by a handful of obstructionist states.
"E.U. officials are pretty upset with the U.N. process and feel pretty frustrated," said Jason Anderson, head of E.U. climate and energy policy at the environmentalist group W.W.F.
"The trick is to find a way to avoid the blockages. If you could just get the major emitters to agree to things, that would take some major problems out of the process."
Europeans are unwilling to accept one possible lesson of Copenhagen — that theirs is a diminishing voice in world affairs.
Yet the more successful they are at reducing their own carbon emissions, the smaller a part of the global problem they will represent. That is not a promising starting point for trying to shape international climate policy.