Word: european
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...tensions reflect the fraying European consensus on climate change. Many countries have been wary of the costs that unilateral E.U. action to reduce emissions would entail, arguing that Europe should act only when all of the world's major greenhouse-gas producers make corresponding pledges...
...Europe is to persuade the U.S. and emerging economic powers like China and India to take similar action, it has to back up its rhetoric with action," says Simon Tilford, chief economist at the London-based Centre for European Reform. "If the E.U. retreats from its leading position on climate policy, it will surrender its first-mover advantage and, with it, the chance to make European firms leaders in key environmental technologies...
...European Commission president José Manuel Barroso has explicitly rejected suggestions that the economic crisis means the E.U. cannot afford to save energy and tackle climate change. "Climate action, energy security and economic growth can and must be pursued in a mutually supportive way," he said on Tuesday. "It would be a real mistake for Europe to give the signal that we are watering down our position after all these years leading the efforts for a global solution now that others, like the Americans, are coming closer to our position...
...should expect climate change to progressively become the area to which government spending will be directed," says Christian Egenhofer, senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. He points to recent German government tax-incentive plans to spur consumption of cleaner cars and green appliances. And he says climate change could become a primary revenue source through emission permits. "If emissions rights are auctioned, governments will be able to collect at least €30 billion ($38.9 billion) annually from 2012 onwards," Egenhofer says. "By 2020, it could reach up to €90 billion ($116.8 billion) annually...
...reductions for developed nations (except the U.S., which never ratified the treaty), will expire in 2012. And last year, at the contentious Bali summit, delegates managed to paper over disputes - including those among the U.S., which under the Bush Administration has generally played the spoiler at these talks; the European Union, which has routinely argued for the most stringent carbon reductions; and the big developing nations, like India and China, which say climate change is the fault of rich nations and have been generally reluctant to take on any carbon-cutting obligations - long enough to lay down a rough outline...