BRUSSELS/LUXEMBOURG, June 25, 2009 - European environment ministers have sidestepped the key emissions reduction strategy of classifying carbon dioxide as a pollutant during consideration of new laws to limit industrial pollution. The move further questions Europe's claim to be a leader in climate action, with California requiring carbon pollution mitigation for the last two years and reclassification under consideration elsewhere.
The EU Environment Council reached a common position on the new Industrial Emissions Directive. The draft law overhauls the framework for controlling pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and dust from thousands of industrial installations across Europe, combining and strengthening seven earlier pieces of legislation.
WWF is calling for carbon dioxide standards to be added to the proposal, in order to respond adequately to the increasing scale and urgency of the global climate crisis. Such a move could cut Europe's total greenhouse gas emissions by around a quarter over the next two decades. But EU ministers failed on this occasion to seize the opportunity.
"Environment ministers skipped aimlessly past what is an obvious game-changing move. In the face of increasingly stark warnings from scientists, Europe has missed a straight-forward opportunity, using a proven regulatory tool, to plan the phase-out of dirty coal-fired power stations," said Mark Johnston, Coordinator for Power Plant CO2 Standards at WWF. "Such a move, which is still possible later this year, would inject a huge confidence boost into the slow-moving global negotiations."
Emission performance standards have been used successfully by European law-makers for more than two decades, leading to dramatic environmental improvements on issues like acid rain and smog.
According to WWF, CO2 standards should apply to the largest category of power plants - approximately 400-500 installations - which account alone for around 25% of Europe's total emissions. Compared to other sectors, electricity has the greatest potential to decarbonise rapidly.
Such standards would mean, for example, that no new coal-fired power plants could be built without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology and that existing plants must use CCS by a given year, e.g. 2025, or close down. As an alternative, electricity companies could expand renewable energy and energy efficiency programmes.
In Europe today, around 50 conventional large coal-fired power stations are currently being proposed with no guarantee of carbon sequestration. If all are built, Europe will find it impossible to achieve its mid- and longer-term climate targets.
In 2007, the EU agreed to cut by 30% CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, linked to the Copenhagen agreement. Yet the EU institutions are failing to say specifically what mix of policies will be used to deliver the target domestically, as the 2008 climate package only delivers 20% and allows for a lot of offsets.
The lack of clarity regarding Europe's Copenhagen implementation, including further emissions cuts between 2020 and 2050, is holding up investments in low-carbon technologies while allowing high-carbon investments, such as new coal-fired power stations, to proceed unhindered.
The draft law will now have to go through second reading, and will be discussed by the European Parliament and Council during the run-up to and after the Copenhagen climate summit.
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