European Unit Summit Paves Way for Fight Against Global Climate Change
March 11th, 2007Demonstrating countries with diverse interests can compromise, the 27-member European Union (EU) reached a tentative agreement that would establish it as the world leader in the fight against global climate change. The primary goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, was reached by allowing member nations to set their own levels.
This was done through recognizing significant advances in well-developed renewable energy resources by several nations such as Latvia, Denmark and Spain, as well as those who are lagging in renewable technologies. Several countries, like Poland, who joined the EU in 2004 are still heavily dependent on coal, and others like Slovakia and Hungary are without coastlines. This makes access to solar and wind development a difficult challenge, which they themselves argued was an unfair burden.
In probably one of the most controversial compromises, included in the agreement was an acknowledgement of nuclear power as a non-carbon energy alternative. This was a result of France’s heavy use of nuclear power, in spite of strong objection from Ireland, Austria and Denmark. It’s possible many countries were more willing to compromise in a effort to reduce their dependence on suppliers like Russia, who shut their oil pipelines to the Germany, Poland and Ukraine last January. Nevertheless, Chancellor Merkel, along with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, should be commended for being able to hammer out a pragmatice agreement with achievable goals.
My only concern with this, is the goal of 2020 is four years after Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth projected tipping-point deadline of 2016, but who knows? Maybe if significant gains are made early, local governments, states and nations might step up their efforts and tip the scales back in the environment’s favor before it’s too late.
Finally, in a challenge to the United States, China and India, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the bloc would commit to a 30 percent cut if other nations followed suit. President Bush has claimed his refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was based on the likelihood it would hurt the U.S. economically. If the EU is able to achieve or surpass its goal without suffering econmic consequences, he and members of Congress would be hard-pressed not to take their lead.
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