Efforts to combat climate change have been political priority
in the European Union since the early 1990s. The EU has played
a key role in the development of the two major international
treaties addressing the issue, the 1992 United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, agreed
in 1997. The Kyoto Protocol target requires greenhouse gas
emissions in 2008-2012 to be 8% below 1990 levels.
However, as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) recognises, much deeper cuts in global emissions of
greenhouse gases will be required in the future to prevent
global warming from reaching dangerous levels (2 degrees Celsius
in average or more). Therefore, formal negotiations have already
been started to reach an international agreement for the post-2012
period. The key building blocks of the future agreement are:
enhanced mitigation of climate change by limiting or reducing
emissions; adaptation to climate change; action on technology
development and transfer; and scaling up of finance and investment
to support mitigation and adaptation.
In January 2007 the Commission put forward an integrated
package of measures to establish a new energy policy for Europe.
The package sets ambitious targets for greenhouse gas emissions
and energy use, to be met by 2020, which were endorsed by
EU leaders at their European Council meeting in March 2007.
The EU would reduce its emissions in the order of 30% below
1990 levels by 2020 provided that other developed countries
agreed to make similar efforts. The EU leaders committed the
EU to cutting its emissions by at least 20% over the same
period in any case. This reduction would be achieved through
various measures, including an increase in renewable energy
sources' share of the energy market to 20% (from 6.5% today),
and an at least 10% share for second-generation biofuels in
petrol and diesel.
Unfortunately there are many attempts nowadays to make climate
change a separate sector and seek technological solutions
for the mitigation and adaptation challenges. However, as
experience shows, such approach does not lead to long term
solutions, but instead expand the problem and transfer environmental
pressure to other fields. There are already signs that climate
change actions lead to ecosystem degradation, which in turn
further deteriorates also the climate problem.
We are convinced that a powerful national strategy capable
of tackling climate change shall deal with the whole system
of production and consumption, instead of seeking for technical
solutions while accepting unsustainable growth in various
sectors, such as energy, agriculture, transport, etc. Eventually
both adaptation and mitigation need the same measurements,
a new macro-structure with lower demand of natural resources
and space. We cannot rely only on the better efficiency of
technical solutions, as long as our demands are growing in
the current rate.
Although increasing CO2 level is one of the most severe pressures,
narrowing the strategy's scope to sectors directly emitting
greenhouse gases could easily transfer the pressure to other
fields, and for instance threaten biodiversity. Beside emissions,
further important pressures leading to climate change are
(1) qualitative and quantitative degradation of (semi)natural
habitats and (2) excessive use of natural resources. All three
kinds of pressure have to be the subject of the strategy,
with the same priority.
It is vital for every country to ensure the best possible
operation of ecosystem services by saving their natural interactions
and structures, which will protect man against climate change
even if the limitation of CO2 level is failed. It is absolute
necessary to limit further degradation of green areas, as
well as to stand for the largest possible reconstruction of
natural cover.
Climate change must be integrated in environment policy as
a whole, in order to preclude making a new separate sector.
Environmental policy should have a coherent and holistic approach.
It is worrisome, that excessive biomass and biofuel use is
supported by the EU and the governments. Taking land from
nature in order to grow biomass is much more harmful for the
Earth's ecosystem, than the - supposed - advantages which
biomass use means in term of 'energy security' and CO2 concentration.
In addition, it results in further emissions which can be
orders of magnitude bigger than the emission saved by the
biomass grown on the area.
Furthermore, switching to renewable energy can only be effective
in environmental view, if it substitutes fossil energy, instead
of simply contributing to the growing energy demand of man.
Even though, sources which are not depletable (solar and wind
energy) must be preferred to biomass.
As being parties of the Kyoto protocol, EU Member States
are obliged to develop their national programmes on climate
change mitigation and adaptation. CEEweb has compiled a questionnaire
about these strategies in order to assess CEE governments'
approach to climate change. Our goal with this survey is to
draw EU and national decisionmakers' attention to the critical
points and deficiencies in current climate change policies
and thus prevent adopting further false "solutions".
Eventually our aim is to work for a sufficient and holistic
climate policy both in national and EU level.
Download the questionnaire
If you would like to provide input into the survey or have
any other question, please contact Ildikó
Arany.
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