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25th January 2008

MEPs at a special EP plenary session in Brussels have broadly supported the proposals launched by the European Commission this week to tackle climate as an economic opportunity for the EU. However, some MEPs raised concerns on the initial Commission target for biofuels and expressed fears that jobs may be exported to parts of the world with no binding targets for carbon emissions.

The European Parliament and European Council, in ‘co-decision’, have the power to amend, adopt or reject the proposals.

Memo: The package the MEPs were discussing is a set of legislative proposals on emission cuts, renewable sources, carbon capture and revision of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. All major CO2 emitters will be given an incentive to develop clean production technologies through a reform of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) that will impose an EU-wide cap on emissions.

The package seeks to reduce EU greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% and increases to 20% the share of renewable energies in the energy consumption by 2020, as agreed by EU leaders in March 2007. The rate of emissions reduction will be increased to 30% by 2020 when the EC anticipates that a new global climate change agreement will be reached.

(www.europarl.europa.eu)

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