By DPA
Brussels : The European Commission approved Wednesday ambitious plans to turn the European Union into the most environmentally friendly economy in the world.
“Now we will show how a modern economy can be designed to meet the challenge (of climate change). This is sustainable development in action,” Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the EU’s Brussels-based executive, told the European Parliament.
“The package of measures proposed today is the most far-reaching legislative proposals to be made by the European Commission for many years,” he said.
The eagerly-awaited document tells the EU’s 27 member states what they have to do in order to cut the bloc’s emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas most linked with global warming, to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
That target was agreed by European government leaders in March 2007, together with a pledge to deepen the cut to 30 percent if other developed economies made a similar effort.
Two of the package’s most important elements concern ways of living up to that promise.
The first is a legal proposal expanding the EU’s current system of trading permits to emit CO2, bringing more industries and types of greenhouse gas into the scheme.
The second sets out rules on what efforts each EU member state should make to cut their emissions of CO2 from branches of industry not covered by the emissions-trading scheme.
“We have paid particular attention to fairness. We have therefore designed the proposals to ensure that the call on the poorer member states is realistic – all will contribute, but in line with their capacity to invest,” Barroso said.
Other parts of the package concern the promise EU leaders made in March to boost their use of energy produced from renewable sources such as wind and solar power to 20 percent of their total consumption by 2020, and to raise their use of plant-based bio-fuels to 10 percent of total transport consumption by the same deadline.
Even before they were approved, the commission’s proposals were criticized by industry and environmentalists.
Industry representatives complained that the cost of buying CO2 emission permits would make them unable to compete against non-EU rivals based in states with less stringent rules. Those complaints were not lost on the commission in its final proposal.
“We want industry to remain in Europe. We don’t want to export jobs to other parts of the world,” Barroso said, confirming that the proposed laws would allow heavy industries to receive their permits free of charge.
But environmental groups attacked the policy on bio-fuels, saying that it would simply increase the rate of rainforest destruction and environmental damage outside the EU.
Seeking to address such concerns, Barroso said: “I want to be clear that in putting forward proposals on bio-fuels, we have also fully respected the other side of the mandate, the need for environmental sustainability.”
The proposals will now need to be approved by the EU’s member states before they can come into force.