Poles, Czechs to appeal EU ruling cutting carbon emissions

(WARSAW) - Poland and the Czech Republic said Friday they would appeal an EU decision sharply cutting their carbon dioxide emission quotas for 2008-2012 for industries with high energy consumption.

The two former members of the Soviet bloc, now both in the EU, decided to follow their fellow EU member Slovakia, which announced in February it would appeal to the European Court of Justice against the ruling.

Slovakia lodged a complaint against a European Commission decision to cut its emissions allocation of carbon dioxide by a quarter between 2008 and 2012.

The commission is charged with approving national governments' bids for carbon dioxide allocations as part of the EU's move to curb emissions of one of the main gases held responsible for global climate change.

In negotiations with the commission, Poland had sought an emission ceiling of 284.6 million tonnes but the commission cut this back by 26.7 percent to 208.5 million tonnes.

The Czech allocation was reduced by 14.8 percent to 86.8 million tonnes.

The allocations affect industries such as metallurgy, oil refining and power stations which have a high energy consumption and are responsible for nearly half of EU carbon dioxide emissions.

Polish Environment Minister Jan Szyszko told journalists Friday the base year for the commission's calculations had been 2005, which had been a hot year when the amount of energy consumed in Poland had dropped.

"If another base year had been chosen, a colder year than 2005, our emission rights would grow to more than 250 million tonnes which would be satisfactory to us," he explained.

He added that Poland's predicted average annual growth had been 4.7, whereas it was already now more than seven percent.

Czech Industry Minister Martin Riman said he was convinced the commission, due to its complicated calculation methods and also because of inaccurate statistics, had done a disservice to his country.

He claimed the commission had broadly undervalued estimates for growth of the Czech gross domestic product during 2009-2010.

Giving its decisions on Poland and the Czech Republic in March, the commission said the two countries' plans were not compatible with EU commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, nor with the forecasted volume of their emissions.