EU, We Need You!
The EU has held off on its -30% target and long-term financing in order to draw greater commitment from others. Now the EU must move just to save the Copenhagen summit
16.12.2009 | ECO, Climate Action Network
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The EU has held off on its -30% target and long-term financing in order to draw greater commitment from others. Now the EU must move just to save the Copenhagen summit.
Negotiations are teetering on a knife-edge. Frustration, mistrust and confusion were unleashed by the AWG LCA’s inability to reach a negotiable text to present the COP. It remains unclear on which textual basis will the work been conducted.
On the other hand, the EU moved one step closer to AOSIS, in demanding that the Copenhagen agreement enable us to stay well below 2 degrees of warming, and Swedish Environment Minister Carlgren announced that the “EU is prepared to reduce emissions by up to 95 percent by 2050 compared to 1990”. Recent North-South financing proposals offer significant funds and innovative, automatic sources. While the envisaged scale of 2020 funding might fall short, the importance of this first step should be recognized.
Nonetheless, there is a real danger that negotiations produce a greenwash deal, or even collapse. Their transparency and fairness have been questioned, their deadlines for final texts missed. Protests inside and outside the conference have shown what is at stake.
The EU must pull the talks from the brink. First, the EU must move immediately and unilaterally to -30%. According to the IEA, windfall credits from the economic crisis and international offsets would allow the weak 20% target to be met “such that in 2020 domestic emissions could be similar to today’s level”. This is clearly not comparable with the effort proposed by other parties, developed and developing, nor with the demands of science and the EU’s obligation to lead.
Second, the EU must table numbers for long-term financing. The EU stood firm to cement Kyoto. Now as the Copenhagen talks wobble between farce and failure, spin and substance, the world once again needs the EU. Leaders’ reputations – Merkel, Brown, Sarkozy, Reinfeldt and Rasmussen - are on the line. Other developed countries will follow, but they are not ready to lead. The EU still can. Put the long-term money on the table, and seal the deal.
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