Ambassador's Corner

WEEKLY MESSAGE FROM AMBASSADOR JOHN BRUTON

January 29, 2007

Senator Barbara Boxer

Last week I met Senator Barbara Boxer (D) of California. She is the new Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee of the Senate and is an ardent environmentalist; she was one of those responsible in 2003 for excluding oil drilling from the Arctic Natural Wildlife Refuge. She voted against the 2002 use-of-force Resolution on Iraq. She is a novelist who also trained as a stockbroker. In her office, she displays pictures of all those who held her Senate seat since California became a State of the Union, including Alan Cranston and Richard Nixon.

She told me she was planning a series of hearings on what President Bush described in his State of the Union address as "the serious challenge of climate change" and she looked forward to cooperating with the European Union on the issue.

I briefed her on the European Union's "cap and trade" system, which is designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. Climate change is one of the issues that can only be dealt with if all states cooperate in a multilateral framework. This also applies to containing infectious diseases and preserving marine fisheries. In a sense, these three issues are ones on which all nations are "condemned to cooperate," whether they like it or not!

I told the Senator that the European Commission has recently made proposals unilaterally to reduce the EU's greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% by 2020 by comparison with 1990 levels. The EU is currently responsible for 16% of global emissions of CO₂, and the United States for 23%.

If there is a general agreement among all developed countries to reduce emissions, the Commission proposes that the EU could go further, without undue loss of competitive advantage in trade, and reduce its emissions by 30% of the 1990 level by 2020. The Commission's proposals will be put forward for approval to a Summit of all 27 EU heads of government on March 8-9.

The EU accepts that developing countries will have to be part of any climate change regime. Developing countries will be making many new investments in power plants, transport infrastructure and housing, and it is much cheaper to build energy-saving features into the design of new facilities than it is to put them into facilities already built.

Part of the problem is that, in many developed countries, the pattern of housing development continues to be incompatible with reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As Christopher Caldwell said in the Financial Times last weekend, suburbs in which every house sits on one acre of land are "uninhabitable" without cars. Increasingly people in some suburbs need to use the car for everything from picking up the newspaper to finding a safe place to go for a walk.

The death penalty

The European Union consistently promotes the abolition of the death penalty under guidelines established in 1998. EU Foreign Ministers recently discussed further initiatives they could take on this. Last December the EU presented a statement on the death penalty in the UN General Assembly, which was signed by eighty-five nations. A world Congress against the death penalty is taking place in Paris in February.

European Demographics

Danuta Hübner, EU Commissioner for Regional Policy, made an interesting speech last week on European population trends.

She said that Europeans everywhere are living longer lives, but that the European fertility rate has fallen from 2.1 per woman in the 1960s to 1.5 today. She added that the highest EU birth rates are in France and Ireland and that the EU's two newest members, Bulgaria and Romania, had amongst the lowest.

On the issue of immigration, Danuta Hübner said that the average non-national population in EU Member States is 5.5% of the total. She added this level of immigration is "not enormous and Europe's history of dealing with these flows is extremely positive."

There are concentrations of immigrants in some places. She said that Spain and southern Italy have been particularly affected by migrations from third countries (mainly Africa), and that the population of non-EU citizens in cities reaches up to 23% in France and 16% in Germany.

To avoid undue concentrations of population, the Commissioner advocated policies to encourage growth in lower density regions, citing the rôle that universities and broadband communications can make in attracting people to the less crowded parts of Europe. I saw a report recently that the population of the Highlands of Scotland has risen by a quarter since 1961.

The World Bank

In addition to representing the European Commission in the dealings with the United States, I also represent it with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which are headquartered in Washington. Last week I spent half a day in meetings in the Bank. I am impressed by the high quality of the World Bank publications on economic development.

In a recent report entitled Global Economic Prospects – Managing the Next Wave of Globalization, the Bank predicted that:

• The Earth's current populations will rise from 6.5 billion to 8 billion by 2030, and 97% of the growth will take place in developing countries.

• The global labour market, in which EU and US workers must compete, will increase from 3 billion people today to 4 billion in 2030.

• By 2030 per capita income in developing countries will reach US$11,000 per capita per year (about the level of incomes in the Czech Republic today).

• In more advanced developing countries (China, Mexico and Turkey) average per capita incomes should reach, in 2030, the level enjoyed in Spain today.

• While overall trends will be positive, some groups, notably unskilled workers, will see their relative incomes fall and, as a result, inequality within societies could grow unless policies are put in place to redistribute both incomes and opportunities.

• Some regions may fall further behind. Africa, now home to one-third of the world's poorest people, is likely to see its share of the world's poorest double to two-thirds by 2030. This has particular implications for Africa's nearest neighbour, Europe.

• Services will be the principal driver of new world trade growth, as information technology increases the scope for trading services across borders.

• Smaller countries may progress faster than big ones, because it is easier for smaller countries quickly to adapt their political and social institutions in ways that support a dynamic market economy.