Spain buys EUR 25m carbon emission rights from Poland
(SOPOT) - Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero Monday signed an agreement for the purchase of carbon dioxide emission rights from Poland worth 25 million euros (37 million dollars).
"This agreement is beneficial to Spain and to Poland and also for limiting the influence of (greenhouse gas) emissions on climate change," Zapatero said at a joint press conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Poland's Baltic Sea resort of Sopot.
The Polish leader said the agreement would "provide ample resources for investment" to "effectively reduce CO2 emissions in Poland."
"This means that Spanish money will work in Poland to improve environmental protection," Tusk added.
Coal-rich Poland depends on greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuel for 94 percent of its electricity, based on infrastructure dating largely from its communist-era.
The nations of the European Union, which Poland joined in 2004, committed last year to curb greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels. They also agreed to increase the use of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 20 percent.
During his one-day working visit to Poland, Zapatero also discussed with Tusk the 27-nation EU's economic development and defence cooperation within Europe. Spain takes over the rotating EU presidency from Sweden on January 1.
Both leaders were due to travel to Berlin later Monday to attend ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, a move regarded as ending the communist era in Europe and paving the way to Germany's reunification.
"Today is a great day for Europe and a great day for freedom," Zapatero said in Sopot, just a stone's throw from the Gdansk shipyard where Poland's freedom fighting Solidarity trade union was born in 1980.
In 1989 Solidarity negotiated a bloodless end to communism in Poland where the first partially democratic elections in the communist bloc were held in June of the same year, six months prior to the toppling of the Berlin Wall.
Text and Picture Copyright 2009 AFP. All other Copyright 2009 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights reserved. This material is intended solely for personal use. Any other reproduction, publication or redistribution of this material without the written agreement of the copyright owner is strictly forbidden and any breach of copyright will be considered actionable.
