Speeches
EU Leadership in Energy for Sustainable Development
Stavros Dimas
EU Environment Commissioner
Side Event, United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD)
New York
10 May 2007
Mr./Madam Chairman,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is my great pleasure to welcome you to this side event organised by the
European Commission and the German
Presidency of the European Union.
We have chosen to focus on sustainable
energy today above all because it holds
the key to controlling
climate change. And climate change, together with
poverty, is perhaps the greatest threat to sustainable development.
We know that climate change is being driven by the relentless increase in our
consumption of fossil fuels that began with the Industrial Revolution. More than
two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to our use of energy.
On current trends, global
energy demand is projected to rise 60% by 2030, and
global emissions by 25 to 90% above 2000 levels.
At the same time, as the latest scientific findings from the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] tell us, global warming is accelerating. The average
global temperature has increased 0.74 degrees over the past 100 years, and it is
likely to rise further by between 1.8 and 4 degrees Celsius this century if we
do not rein in emissions.
The international community has to act fast. What we do - or don’t do - over the
next decade or so will determine whether we manage to bring climate change under
control and avert its worst impacts.
If we fail to act boldly enough, climate change is almost certain to reach
dangerous levels that will undermine the stability and prosperity of our
societies and jeopardise the very survival of small island states and low-lying
areas.
We know that climate change will severely affect food production in many parts
of Africa. And within just over forty years from now, by the 2050s, more than a
billion people in central, southern and eastern Asia could be suffering from
shortages of water.
Faced with these enormous challenges it is encouraging that the Commission on
Sustainable Development is addressing energy and climate change, as well as air
pollution and industrial development, in a fully integrated way.
This integrated approach is absolutely necessary, but it is also something of a
breakthrough: until recently policy makers and the business community tended not
to make the link, and to focus mainly on energy alone. At last it is being
recognised that energy and climate change are two sides of the same coin.
Climate/energy package
The European Union has fully acknowledged this fundamental link. It is central
to the integrated
climate change and energy strategy that the European
Commission presented in January and which was fully endorsed by EU leaders at
their summit in March.
The simple truth – one might say the inconvenient truth - is that we have to
make our energy systems far more sustainable if we are to stand a chance of
preventing the most dangerous impacts of climate change. We need to move rapidly
from a carbon-based economy to a low-carbon economy.
This is challenging, but let me underline that it is both technologically
feasible and economically affordable. As last week’s IPCC report on mitigation
makes clear, substantial economic potential exists not only for offsetting the
projected growth in global emissions over the coming decades but also for
reducing emissions below current levels.
The European Union’s package of climate and energy measures shows the way
forward. It heralds a new industrial revolution, an unleashing of innovation and
creativity, to build the low-carbon economy of the future.
Some of you will already be familiar with this landmark initiative, but for the
benefit of those who are not, let me quickly run over its main points.
Our strategy puts the battle against climate change at the heart of a new
European energy policy that will also increase our energy security and improve
our economic competitiveness.
We have set ourselves clear and ambitious targets - and these are targets that
other developed countries could easily take on board too. They rely on clean
technologies that are either readily available now or at an advanced state of
development. These are, principally, energy efficiency, renewable energies,
biofuels and carbon capture and storage to ensure the clean use of fossil
fuels.
• First, we will save 20% of our energy needs by 2020 by
improving energy efficiency. To encourage others to do the same we also want
to reach an international energy efficiency agreement. Saving energy is by
far the cheapest way of reducing emissions.
• Second, by 2020 renewable energy will account for 20% of our energy
consumption, while biofuels will have a share of at least 10% of our gasoline
and diesel.
• Third, we aim to have carbon capture and storage technology deployed in new
power plants from around 2020 onwards.
Besides substantially cutting our greenhouse gas emissions and increasing our
energy security, these measures will also contribute significantly to reducing
air pollution and its associated health care costs.
Global targets
Our climate and energy package confirms Europe’s world leadership on climate
change in that it also sets out our proposals for a new global agreement to take
effect after the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period ends in 2012.
Preliminary discussions started a year ago. To avoid any policy gap after 2012
it is now crucial that the international community agrees to launch formal
negotiations to draft the new agreement at the next UN ministerial meeting on
climate change in December in Bali.
For the European Union the aim of the agreement must be to limit global warming
to no more than 2 degrees Celsius – that is, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit - above the
pre-industrial temperature. The scientific evidence shows that the risk of
irreversible and potentially catastrophic changes, such as the melting of the
Greenland ice sheet or of the Arctic permafrost, would markedly increase if the
temperature rose much beyond that threshold.
As the IPCC confirmed last week, to have a chance of staying within the 2
degrees temperature ceiling means that global emissions will need to peak by
around 2020 and then fall to less than half of 1990 levels by 2050.
Time is not on our side. We have to start getting emissions onto the right
track. That is why the European Union is proposing that developed countries
commit to a 30% reduction by 2020, and that the more advanced developing
countries start to slow their emissions growth as soon as possible.
The EU has stated clearly that we will reduce our emissions by 30% if other
nations also commit to making an appropriate effort as part of a new global
agreement. As a sign of our determination to see effective international action,
we have pledged that we will in any case cut our emissions by at least 20% -
even though global negotiations have yet to begin.
With the new measures in our climate and energy package, as well as existing
instruments such as our company-level
Emissions Trading Scheme
[ETS] for greenhouse
gases, we know we have the tools to achieve this reduction.
ETS/global carbon market
And our independent commitment to achieve a cut of at least 20% sends an
unambiguous signal to any doubters in industry that the emissions trading
scheme, the core of our climate change strategy, will continue well beyond 2012.
We see emissions trading as a crucial tool for achieving emission reductions
cost-effectively, not only within Europe but globally. I very much welcome the
development of similar schemes that is under way at state and regional level
here in the US as well as in Australia.
Our vision is that emission trading systems with comparable levels of ambition
should be linked up to form the backbone of a global carbon market that can
ensure emission cuts are achieved at least cost. An expanded global carbon
market, built on the Kyoto mechanisms with the addition of company-or sector
level emissions trading, should be central to the architecture of a new global
climate change agreement. Putting a price on emissions is essential to create
the incentives for a large-scale move to the low-carbon economy.
Costs and benefits
Some of you may be asking whether the world can afford to make the deep cuts in
greenhouse gas emissions that are needed to avoid the most dangerous effects of
climate change.
The answer is yes, absolutely. In fact, we cannot afford not to.
The European Commission's own analysis and last year's Stern Review of the
economics of climate change come to the same conclusion: the benefits of
limiting global warming will far outweigh the costs of taking action.
The Stern Review projects that if we do nothing to control emissions, climate
change will eventually wreak damage costing between 5% and as much as 20% of
global GDP each year. The enormous economic and social impact of this has been
compared to that of the world wars or the great depression.
Tackling climate change is therefore the pro-growth strategy for the long term.
Last week's IPCC report on mitigating climate change concludes that the cost of
limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius would reduce global GDP growth by
less than 0.12 percentage points a year up to 2030 and beyond. Our own analysis
puts this figure slightly higher at 0.19 percentage points, meaning that annual
global GDP growth up to 2030 would be 2.61% instead of 2.8%.
Either of these figures represents good value if we look at them as an insurance
premium against the devastating damage that climate change will cause if we
allow it to reach dangerous levels. And the real cost is most probably lower
still, since neither figure takes account of co-benefits like improved energy
security and reduced air pollution.
Developing countries
The developed countries are historically responsible for the bulk of the
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today. The European Union, the United States
and other developed countries have a moral duty to continue leading the battle
against climate change.
We in Europe are committed to doing so. As I have said, we are proposing that
developed countries cut their emissions to 30% below 1990 levels by 2020, and we
know that reductions of 60 to 80% will be necessary by 2050.
But action by developed countries alone will not be enough to bring climate
change under control. Emissions from the developing countries collectively are
rising fast. By 2020 emissions from energy and industry are projected to
overtake those from the developed world.
We cannot simply stick our heads in the sand and ignore this trend.
An effective global solution for the post-2012 period will therefore have to
address emissions from developing countries, except those from the least
developed countries which in any case are still relatively low. We in the
developed world must help developing countries to start slowing their emissions
growth as soon as possible, and then to reduce emissions in absolute terms from
2020 onwards.
I have no illusions about the magnitude of this challenge. But there are many
options for cutting developing countries' emissions that would actually deliver
immediate economic and social benefits and would not hinder their efforts to
grow and escape poverty. Increasing energy efficiency and reducing air pollution
are two examples.
We are also going to have to find effective ways to halt deforestation because
it is responsible for around 20% of global emissions - second only to the
burning of fossil fuels. Political will and ingenuity are needed to devise the
incentives that can halt and then reverse this trend within the next two to
three decades. This would also give a massive fillip to efforts to stop the loss
of global biodiversity.
Among the concrete options available to help developing countries address their
emissions, we believe the Clean Development Mechanism should be expanded and new
financing approaches should be devised to channel investment into energy
infrastructure with low emission levels.
GEEREF
A key contribution in this regard will come from GEEREF, the
Global Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund set up by the European Commission last
year.
This innovative global risk capital fund will bring clean and affordable energy
supplies to some of the 1.6 billion people around the world who currently have
no access to electricity. It will accelerate the transfer and deployment of
environmentally sound energy technologies to developing countries and economies
in transition. I am confident it will also help to achieve a more equitable
distribution of Clean Development Mechanism projects across the developing
world.
GEEREF already has funding pledges of 122 million euros and we believe that with
this we will be able to mobilise additional risk capital of between 300 million
and 1 billion euros in the longer term. This makes it a powerful addition to the
European Union's development assistance armoury.
Adaptation
We in the developed world have a duty to help developing countries not only to
mitigate climate change but also to minimise its inevitable impacts by adapting
to it. Many developing countries are especially vulnerable to climate change and
will suffer from it disproportionately for a combination of reasons including
their geography, their reliance on rain-fed agriculture and their relative lack
of financial resources.
The European Commission is planning to help address this through a new
initiative, the Global Climate Policy Alliance, that will support adaptation
activities in the least developed countries in particular.
Our goal is to build a political coalition between the European Union and
developing countries to support national investments in adaptation and also
mitigation. We envisage creating a special funding mechanism to promote
fast-track implementation of adaptation activities in the least developed
countries and other low-income countries. The European Commission will
contribute 50 million euros over the next four years but we expect the largest
contribution to come collectively from the European Union’s Member States.
The Global Climate Policy Alliance would thus be a valuable addition to the
other international initiatives under way to help adaptation in developing
countries, such as the Kyoto Protocol's Adaptation Fund, and the decisions taken
at last November's UN climate change ministerial in Nairobi.
Conclusion
Ladies and gentlemen,
We are all here in New York to advance the world’s progress towards sustainable
development. But there will be no sustainable development if we do not win the
battle against climate change.
The European Union has proposed the global action that can win this battle, and
we have fixed targets for shifting our own energy system towards a more
sustainable, lower carbon future. As the IPCC has confirmed, the costs of action
are modest and manageable. The consequences of doing nothing will be far more
severe, in both economic and human terms.
We urge our partners in the developed and the developing worlds alike to work
with us to reach a new global agreement that is bold enough to avert the grave
threat we all face. Let us use our time in New York to lay the groundwork so
that negotiations can be launched in Bali and rapidly completed.
We need to stabilise global emissions within little more than a decade. The time
for action is now.
Thank you.
