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Finance ministers dodge responsibility in climate cash decision
Brussels, 10 March – European Finance Ministers failed to lay hard cash
on the table today to support decarbonising economies in developing
countries and to compensate for coping with the consequences of climate
change [1].
Carbon offsetting schemes, such as the Clean Development Mechanism, have
been put forward as mechanisms to tackle climate change and encourage
financial flows to the global South. Friends of the Earth Europe
believes that they are a loophole for industrialised countries to avoid
making necessary emission cuts at home.
Finance ministers meeting today at the Economic and Financial Affairs
Council in Brussels have dodged responsibility for providing developing countries with the funds they will need to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and respond to the already existing impacts of climate change.
Taking into account the historical responsibility of the EU countries
for producing emissions, and their capacity to pay, the EU’s fair share
of the bill is of at least Euro 35 billion per year.
Esther Bollendorff, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe,
said: “At a time when we are facing the most severe economic crisis of
the last 50 years, the EU cannot afford to make poorly thought out and
selfish financial choices, bailing out the car industry and bankrupt
bankers. The EU has a moral and historical obligation to help the
developing world tackle climate change, a problem that Europeans helped
to create. The EU has to pay its fair share – estimated to be at least
Euro 35 billion per year”
Finance ministers have also endorsed the role of the Clean Development
Mechanism as an important tool to deliver substantial financial flows
from the EU to developing countries, and as a way to engage developing
countries in the carbon trading market. The Clean Development Mechanism
has however led to well-documented negative impacts on communities and
the environment in the global South [2]. “The Clean Development
Mechanism is inherently unfair and is based on the failure of
industrialised countries to achieve necessary emissions reduction
targets at home,” said Bollendorff. She added: “EU leaders have to
acknowledge that the ability to buy credits abroad will not provide any
incentive for European economies to develop the technologies needed for
much steeper emission cuts.”
Friends of the Earth Europe ask that the EU commit to 40% cuts in
domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 2020[3]. The current target of 20%
gives no significant chance to stay below a 2 degree temperature
increase and includes unacceptably high levels of external credits.
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For more information, please contact:
Esther Bollendorff, climate campaigner of the Friends of the Earth
Europe: Tel: +32 2 893 1015 and +32 484 564680 (Belgian mobile),
esther.bollendorff@foeeurope.org
***
NOTES
[1] Failing to agree on the EU’s fair share needed to finance adaptation
and mitigation in developing countries, Environment Ministers forwarded
this decision last week to today’s ECOFIN Council and ultimately to the
Heads of State meeting next week on the 19th and 20th.
[2] Is the CDM fulfilling its environmental and sustainable development
objectives?
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/oeko_institut__2007____is_the_cdm_fulfilling_its_environmental_and_sustainable_developme.pdf
[3] In March 2007 the EU agreed to cut its emissions by 20% by 2020 in
case there is not international agreement and by 30% by 2020 if other
countries agree to take on similar reduction objectives.
Friends of the Earth Europe campaigns for sustainable and fair societies and for the protection of the environment,
unites more than 30 national organisations with thousands of local groups
and is part of the world's largest grassroots environmental network, Friends of the Earth International.
