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EU LEADERS DEBATED through the night into this morning trying to agree more ambitious climate targets, despite earlier winning a victory for unity in unblocking the bloc’s two trillion euro budget and recovery fund.
The bitter summit debate over how to fight climate change went into the early hours, as the 27 EU members disagreed over declaring a binding target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by at least 55% compared to 1990 levels.
After marathon talks, the 55% cut was finally agreed.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said: “Europe will reduce emissions by at least 55% by 2030. It puts us on a clear path towards climate neutrality in 2050.”
The fight was over how the cost of the effort should be shared across the countries: highly dependent on coal, Poland – allied with several Eastern European countries – fears serious economic consequences and wanted details on the aid it would receive.
“I’m always optimistic. I think that leaders are determined to reach a consensus before going to bed,” a European source said after seven hours of fruitless talks.
As part of its commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement, the EU has pledged to become climate-neutral by 2050, the date when it would offset or capture more greenhouse gas than it emits.
However, the previous interim target for 2030 – a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to 1990 – is not now seen as sufficient to achieve this goal.
At an October summit, the EU leaders postponed the decision on the more ambitious climate target until their next meeting, given the hesitation by the eastern member states.
Green new deal
The new climate goals are backed by big EU powers, including France and Germany, as well as many major businesses keen to access European funding to kickstart a recovery through what Brussels has taken to calling a green new deal.
The marathon row over climate targets began after the resolution of another fight, also involving Warsaw, that might have spurred optimism.
The leaders resolved a bitter dispute with Poland and Hungary and salvaged the bloc’s landmark coronavirus recovery plan that the countries had vetoed.
Europe’s €1.8 trillion budget and coronavirus recovery package had been blocked by Hungary and Poland over an attempt to link the disbursement of funds to respect for the rule of law.
The stand-off risked delaying the recovery fund well into next year, just as a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic was punishing the European economy, but yesterday the leaders came to a compromise that allowed the package to go through.
“Today’s agreement shows that insight triumphs over egoism. With this financial package, Europe can emerge powerfully from the crisis,” German finance minister Olaf Scholz said in a statement.
“We have defended the interests of Hungary. D-Day was a success!” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.
Brexit pushed aside
And his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki said: “We fight for our rights. We fight for clarity, we fight for certainty of law, and we fight for the EU treaty so that they are not circumvented by the secondary law.”
Under the deal, the Polish leader explained, the rule of law mechanism would be limited to ensure that EU funds are spent correctly according to precise criteria and not touch on social issues such as abortion, LGBT rights or migration policy.
Budapest and Warsaw are major recipients of EU budget cash, and their critics see the rule of law mechanism as a way to slow their alleged slide into authoritarianism.
Both governments have been accused by Brussels of rolling back democratic freedoms, notably judicial independence in Poland and press and civil society freedoms in Hungary.
Both climate and the budget succeeded in pushing failing Brexit trade negotiations to the side. The leaders were not expected to discuss the talks at length during the two-day summit, but had been due to be briefed on them.
London and Brussels have said they will decide by Sunday whether to press on with talks aimed at thrashing out a post-Brexit trade deal, after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen failed to bridge “major differences”.
The EU ratcheted up pressure by publishing its no-deal contingency plan to protect air and road travel and fishing rights just three weeks ahead of a year-end deadline, as negotiators from the two sides resumed talks in Brussels to find a way forward.
Turkey sanctions
The marathon summit also decided to draw up a list of Turkish targets for sanctions over its stand-off on energy resources with EU members Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Ankara has been challenging Athens over maritime territory in the region by repeatedly sending a gas exploration vessel into Greek waters.
France, Greece, and Cyprus are pushing for action against Turkey, but other EU nations including Germany, Italy and Poland oppose slapping broad sanctions or an embargo on a fellow NATO member.
“The council adopted sanctions in the face of Turkey’s ‘unilateral actions and provocations’,” French minister for European affairs Clement Beaune tweeted.
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This is why we need to leave the EU!!
@Simp Cuckington: quite the opposite, in fact.
Thankfully we only have a few vocal cranks who don’t believe in the scientific facts. A pity social media gives them a voice.
@Fozz: it would be nice if we could silence sheople like yourself
@Simp Cuckington: the world and the EU does not revolve around the UK and Brexit. Delighted to see that the European Council only spent ten minutes on Brexit. Everyone is fed up with the angst of Boris and his Tory party chums who claimed that they held all the cards.
@Simp Cuckington: The anti science tin hat brigade is out in full force. Tin hats believe anything made by some guy in his bedroom on YouTube is fact. so gullible
@Simp Cuckington: isn’t amazing that the only people constantly trotting out the same lines are the same ones that accuse others of being sheeple, or some other ridiculous derivative?
@Leitrim303: Now is your opportunity to enlighten us tinfoil hats with some science, I am sure these guys would love to hear from you
https://clintel.org/
p.s. they don’t operate from their bedrooms
@John Kennedy: https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/letter-signed-by-500-scientists-relies-on-inaccurate-claims-about-climate-science/
According to Dutch broadcaster Pointer (KRO_NCRV), the 800 “scientists, scholars, and professionals” that support CLINTEL have “conducted little to no climate research”. DeSmog analysis has found that the list of signatories includes a commercial fisherman, a retired chemist, a cardiologist, and an air-conditioning engineer, alongside a number of retired geologists.
The Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL) is a Netherlands-based climate science denial group founded in 2019 by retired professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and journalist Marcel Crok.
Additionally, research by Follow the Money and the Platform Authentic Journalism, two Dutch investigative journalism sites, and data-journalism broadcaster Pointer (KRO-NCRV), found that oil money built up from the 1990s has filtered its way into the foundations of CLINTEL. [16]
An article on Follow the Money’s site explains that Guus Berkhout founded the Delphi Consortium, a company that develops geo-imaging technology for the oil and gas industry, in 1982. Over 30 fossil fuel organisations were committed to paying €30,000 to €55,000 per year to have access to Delphi’s research, including Shell, BP and Chevron.”
https://www.desmogblog.com/climate-intelligence-foundation-clintel
@Oisín Callan: I find no evidence in the quoted article to dispute the claim by Clintel, perhaps you could point it out to me, incidentally any comment from anyone associated with the Climate Research Unit should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy
Desmogblog… yup, a truly reliable source
@John Kennedy: Literally the first link in my comment is to a systematic debunking of every unsourced talking point in the clintel declaration by actual climate scientists, not cardiologists and fishermen. I’ll post it again in case you missed it:
https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/letter-signed-by-500-scientists-relies-on-inaccurate-claims-about-climate-science/
If you’re going to try post wikipedia articles as some kind of “gotcha”, try actually reading them first.
“Fact-checkers confirmed that climate change deniers misrepresented the contents of the emails.”
“Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.”
“Desmogblog… yup, a truly reliable source”
More reliable than a think-tank funded by the oil industry. They even listed their sources at the bottom of the article so you don’t have to take their word for it.
@John Kennedy: hahahahaha actually read that wikipedia article and the whole way down you will see that it repeatedly shows that climate deniers misrepresented what was contained in the emails and took sentences out of context to give them meanings they never had. If anything you have just cited evidence of the credibility of the Clinate Research Unit, a large scale hack and 8 subsequent investigations uncovered no actual evidence of scientific misconduct
@John Kennedy: Here’s a good video which looks at the CRU email quotes in context:
https://youtu.be/7nnVQ2fROOg
@Oisín Callan: Watch this prof take apart the co2 argument in front of congress using facts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofXQdl1FDGk
The Great Reset
@Mike Burry: the great flying tinfoil monster
@DJ François: how can it be a conspiracy if the world economic Forum aka the davos summit and the UN are actively promoting it.
@Mícheál Seán Mac Conmhaic: Actively promoting the “great reset”?
@DJ François: The World Economic Forum have a podcast talking all about the Great Reset, its on Spotify you should give it a listen (seriously)
There is no tax on airline fuel
@Pete Lee: hopefully flying for business meetings will be a thing of the past now and commuting will be permanently reduced. People do need protein though so they shouldn’t come down so hard on meat and dairy which are essential for our health, while cars, which have enormous emissions during manufacture and use and are mostly unnecessary get a free pass because the EU is controlled by Germany. There’s a reason they built roads not more efficient rail for us.
@SC: we had loads of rail and we got rid of it
@Pete Lee: can’t tax airline fuel they couldn’t compete with oil rich nations where the stuff is consumed like its fresh air because it’s so cheap
Growing imimirgrant population all striving to gets jobs driving to pay for energy to heat their dwellings in a cooler climate, guess we’ll have to go nuclear for the future
@Gerard Heery: The energy cost of individuals is negligible compared with that of industry. That is why it is important for society to act as a whole in terms of energy efficiency
As for nuclear power we should at least be able to debate the possibility. The technology has come a long way since the likes of Sellafield
@David: then why is it a us negligible individual s pay for it the most
@Gerard Heery: Do you mean as tax payers? Businesses pay taxes too. While as a percentage of there income its significantly less overall businesses tax returns account for the vast majority of the finances available to a country
The idea of companies or the rich paying more is a different debate though tax rates do not fluctuate a lot from country to country.
But personally I think cleaner air and a cleaner environment benefits everyone
Install solar panels on every roof of every home built…. or in desert areas for alternative power supply…investment is essential.
@Eddie Michael: You really don’t know anything about solar panels. do you?, in 2019 in the EU28 solar panels operated at 12.7% efficiency
Source https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/the-excess-costs-of-weather-dependent-renewable-power-generation-in-the-eu28w/
based on data from https://www.eurobserv-er.org/
@Eddie Michael: Great idea! And not that expensive, I also think local turbine areas and hydro energy converters that provide power to whole towns would be a great shout, provide a lot of jobs in places they’re sparce and hopefully get more people out into the country
@John Kennedy: Fossil fuel plants are about 33%-37% with out factoring the energy spent in extracting and transporting them not to mention the cost of cleanup including the removal of waste etc.
@John Kennedy: 12.7 % of the sun’s energy is a lot…
@SC: No, that would be 12.7% of their rated output.
@Francis Devenney: No, conventional power plants (fossil fuel) operate at 90% rated capacity.
@John Kennedy: We’re talking about efficiency (Your OP) not capacity. A 100 watt incandescent light bulb runs a nearly full capacity but is less than 10% efficient as most of the input is lost in heat rather than light. In fossil fuel plants about 70% of the input is wasted, as in not converted into energy output.
This is really brilliant news on paper and I’d be really excited about it but I have a feeling our government is gonna use this to tax the pollox off us.. I hope they realise they can’t actually tax us out of our emissions, they gotta make green options much cheaper and WIDELY available if they really wanna take this off the ground. I think we should invest heavily in green energy, if we’re smart enough we could provide clean power the whole island with some left over to sell and share with the rest of the world, our little island nation has a lot of potential to be a real world player in the next 10 years if we make the right moves sooner rather than later
@Dylan Byrne: of course it is. The EU wants to buy more weapons and build up its armies. There are no policies in place to tackle wasteful use of resources (personal cars, excessive consumption, planned obsolescence) and distinguish them from essential activities like farming. It just means EU corporations will ship their manufacturing to poor countries and raise taxes on normal people. Overall global climate will be unaffected.
@SC: gulp
Let’s hope the greens are gone. More carbon taxes on the way.
As someone who has tried organizing a group “do” at a restaurant, I applaud 27 people agreeing on anything.
But while 55% sounds decent on the surface, using 1990 as the benchmark is bitterly disappointing.
@Amiga Ireland: and it seems that they use the 1990 baseline because that been agreed on the Kyoto-Protocol and they are using it since then. Makes sense to have everyone measuring against the same baseline. But they should update it.
@Amiga Ireland: it is the benchmark universally used.
have your say