EU leaders to renew focus on climate change

Climate change received only cursory attention at the European Council, as the eurozone’s difficulties took precedence.

Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council president, had promised at the start of the year, in the wake of the EU’s failure at the Copenhagen negotiations, that climate change would top the agenda of the informal summit in February. In the event, Greece’s debt crisis took precedence over a soul-searching discussion of the EU’s climate diplomacy and the issue was never high on the agenda for last week’s meeting.

After discussions on Friday morning, EU leaders pledged to bring “a new dynamic” to stalled international talks and spelt out their expectations for two big meetings in 2010.

Efforts to agree a new global deal on climate change are to resume at a United Nations conference in Bonn in May and June, which will be followed by a further UN conference in Cancún, Mexico, in December.

Cancún roadmap

The EU wants the Bonn meeting to produce a roadmap for moving the talks forward and hopes that Cancún will yield agreements on such crucial issues as adaptation to climate change and tackling deforestation.

Van Rompuy promised meetings with significant countries to move the talks forward and the EU wants climate change put on the agenda for the G20 meeting in Toronto in June.

Restored target

A draft of the European Council conclusions that was circulated on Friday briefly put the EU’s commitment in question because it did not contain the EU’s long-standing promise to increase its carbon-reduction pledge to 30% by 2020 if other countries made similar efforts. The target was restored to the final version of the published conclusions, after some governments argued that it would look inconsistent not to include the EU’s oft-stated position.

For the next Council meeting in June, the European Commission will present a cost-benefit analysis of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 30%.

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