Commission Communication on climate change - The EU approach to Kyoto
The European Commission has adopted a Communication on climate change, entitled "The EU approach to Kyoto", which outlines the EU negotiating position for the forthcoming Kyoto Conference on Climate Change, to be held in December. The Communication stresses the urgent need for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and describes how the EU proposed target of a 15% reduction in the emission of three greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) - by the year 2010, relative to 1990, can be achieved. Technical reduction possibilities are provided for all sectors (transport, industry, electricity, etc.). It concludes that this target, adopted as the EU negotiating position by the EU Environment Council in March 1997, is both a technically feasible and economically manageable objective. The Communication, however, stresses that it would not be possible for the EU to take unilateral action and that all industrialized countries must make comparable reduction efforts. In particular, Mrs. Ritt Bjerregaard, Commissioner responsible for the environment, called on the United States to come forward with a constructive and ambitious position on emission reductions, and for Japan to "establish its leadership in order to ensure the success of the Kyoto Conference". Commenting on the Communication, Mrs. Bjerregaard stressed that "It will be a major political challenge to develop and implement a strategy corresponding to the EU proposal but this Communication shows that it can and must be done." The Commission's Communication, adopted on 1 October 1997, followed one day after the landmark consensus declaration by over 1,500 distinguished scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in science, calling on all government leaders to demonstrate a new commitment to protecting the global climate. This "World Scientists' Call for Action at Kyoto" was presented to the Clinton Administration at a Science Summit on Climate Change held in Washington, DC.