2008

For 15 years, European countries insisted that any international climate treaty abide by the doctrine of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” or the principle that developing countries should be exempt from economically painful emissions reductions, because developed nations are largely responsible for the historical buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The United States has refused to accept the doctrine of “common but differentiated responsibilities. In 1998, by a vote of 95 to 0, the Senate voted in favor of the Byrd-Hagel resolution, which resolved that the U.S. should not sign any international agreement to set mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions that did not also set emissions limits on developing countries. The Senate acted on the belief that it made no sense to harm the U.S. economy, and perhaps even drive domestic industry abroad to strategic competitors, given that the developing world’s future emissions would drive up atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases past the “threshold” that scientists say would cause irreversible climate change, even if developed countries somehow managed to reduce emissions 100%.

The Bush administration has conducted its climate diplomacy largely in accordance with the logic of the Byrd-Hagel resolution, much to the chagrin of European nations, who have maintained that developed nations need to set an example before the developing nations should proceed.

That is, until now. Yesterday, the EU Environmental Council (a body of environmental ministers from EU member states) released a statement that developing countries "would have to reduce their emissions by 15 to 30% below business as usual" by 2020 in order for the EU to sign up to a global emissions reductions regime in Copenhagen in December 2009.”

When European leaders met this week for the quarterly European Council meetings, the EU’s pledge to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 was on the agenda. By using their veto threat, Italy and the six east European members deleted all reference to the EU Commission’s climate strategy from the Council statement, and they also won the right to modify the strategy to make it “cost effective.”

Poland opposes the climate plan because it is dependent on coal for 95% of its electricity. Two weeks ago, the EU Parliament endorsed a plan from the EU Commission to reduce greenhouse emissions with a tough cap-and-trade scheme that would price coal out of the energy market, due to its high carbon content. Without coal, Polish officials are worried that they would have to turn to Russian natural gas. For the Poles, however, energy dependence on Russia, their former master, is unacceptable.

Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria are also coal dependent countries in eastern Europe, and they share Poland’s fear of energy dependence on Russia. That’s why these states agreed to join together to oppose the EU’s climate plan at the European Council.

Instead of energy security, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi cited international competition as the reason that Italy opposed the climate plan. "I have announced my intention to exercise my veto," he said. “We do not think that now is the time to be playing the role of Don Quixote, when the big producers of CO2, such as the United States or China, are totally against adherence to our targets.”

France and Germany, two of the EU’s most powerful members, continue to disagree over whether the financial crisis should influence the EU’s climate plan. Three weeks ago in Berlin, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told a conference that “the crisis changes priorities…One cannot rule out that interest in protecting the climate will change because of such a crisis.”

However, French President Nicolas Sarkozy this week told the press that “The deadline on climate change is so important that we cannot use the financial and economic crisis as a pretext for dropping it.”