Europe continues to block fair climate agreement

21 October 2009
by eub2 -- last modified 21 October 2009

A just and fair international agreement on combating climate change is no nearer after Europe's environment ministers today failed to show Europe is willing to live up to its historical responsibilities for causing the climate crisis.

Environment ministers reached an agreement on the EU's position for the international climate negotiations in December. The position, which ministers claim readies Europe to reach agreement in Copenhagen, fails to commit Europe to make the cuts in emissions needed to avoid dangerous climate change. It commits the EU to make only 20% cuts in emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, with a conditional shift to 30% subject to comparable reductions by other countries.

Ministers still failed to guarantee the funding needed to help poor countries deal with the impacts of a changing climate.

Sonja Meister, climate campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe, said: "The level of ambition demonstrated by environment ministers will not deliver a fair and just global climate agreement in Copenhagen. Europe must go much further than this and live up to its historical responsibilities by committing to cut emissions by 40% domestically by 2020 and to provide its fair share of the funding for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. Committing to only
20% emissions cuts with huge amounts of offsetting allowed falls far short of what science tells us is needed and will lead the world straight toward dangerous climate change."

Friends of the Earth Europe campaigns for sustainable and just 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.

Friends of the Earth Europe