Looks like Europe has finally pulled its head out of its ass on the global warming fraud. Maybe the low-information voters in the US will take note.
Green Fade-Out
Europe to Ditch Climate Protection Goals
By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Brussels
The EU's reputation as a model of environmental responsibility may soon be history. The European Commission wants to forgo ambitious climate protection goals and pave the way for fracking -- jeopardizing Germany's touted energy revolution in the process.
The climate between Brussels and Berlin is polluted, something European Commission officials attribute, among other things, to the "reckless" way German Chancellor Angela Merkel blocked stricter exhaust emissions during her re-election campaign to placate domestic automotive manufacturers like Daimler and BMW. This kind of blatant self-interest, officials complained at the time, is poisoning the climate.
But now it seems that the climate is no longer of much importance to the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, either. Commission sources have long been hinting that the body intends to move away from ambitious climate protection goals. On Tuesday, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported as much.
At the request of Commission President José Manuel Barroso, EU member states are no longer to receive specific guidelines for the development ofrenewable energy. The stated aim of increasing the share of green energy across the EU to up to 27 percent will hold. But how seriously countries tackle this project will no longer be regulated within the plan. As of 2020 at the latest -- when the current commitment to further increase the share of green energy expires -- climate protection in the EU will apparently be pursued on a voluntary basis.
Climate Leaders No More?
With such a policy, the European Union is seriously jeopardizing its global climate leadership role. Back in 2007, when Germany held the European Council presidency, the body decided on a climate and energy legislation package known as the "20-20-20" targets, to be fulfilled by the year 2020. They included:
a 20 percent reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions;
raising the share of EU energy consumption produced from renewable resources to 20 percent;
and a 20 percent improvement in the EU's energy efficiency.
All of the goals were formulated relative to 1990 levels. And the targets could very well be met. But in the future, European climate and energy policy may be limited to just a single project: reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Commission plans also set no new binding rules for energy efficiency.
Welcome, Frackers
In addition, the authority wants to pave the way in the EU for the controversial practice of fracking, according to the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The report says the Commission does not intend to establish strict rules for the extraction of shale gas, but only minimum health and environmental standards.
The plans will be officially presented next Wednesday ahead of an EU summit meeting in March. Observers, however, believe that a decision is unlikely to come until the summer at the earliest. But action must be taken this year: At the beginning of 2015, a climate conference will take place in Paris at which a global climate agreement is to be hashed out.
The European Parliament is unlikely to be pleased with the Commission's plans. Just at the beginning of January, a strong parliamentary majority voted to reduce carbon emissions EU-wide by 40 percent by 2030 and to raise the portion of renewables to at least 30 percent of energy consumption.
Germany's Energy Goals at Risk
The Commission's move further isolates Germany. Merkel's government, a "grand coalition" of her conservatives and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), seeks to increase the share of renewables in the country's energy mix to 60 percent by 2036. As reported in the latest issue of SPIEGEL, Sigmar Gabriel, SPD chair and minister of energy and economics, recently urged Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger to put forth mandatory expansion targets for renewable energy in the EU by 2030. Europe "can't afford to pass up this opportunity," Gabriel wrote.
But within the Commission, the ambitious project has long been controversial. The same goes for EU member states, as Gabriel recently discovered. Prior to Christmas the minister, together with eight colleagues from throughout the EU, called for a "renewables target" in a letter to the Commission. But some countries, such as France, joined the appeal only hesitantly at the time. Paris might prefer instead to rely more heavily on nuclear power in order to meet stringent carbon emission requirements.
Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger, a German from Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, has also shown reluctance. Rather than setting clear goals for the share of renewables, he wants fixed targets only for the reduction of carbon emissions -- and he is skeptical even of the 40 percent target proposed by Climate Commissioner Hedegaard.
The Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) writes in a recent study that more moderate EU climate goals and less support for renewable energies could have a real impact on Germany's so-called Energiewende, or energy revolution. "In such a context," writes the nonpartisan think tank, "it will be increasingly difficult for Germany to successfully carry out pioneering policies."
Originally posted by sasquatch672Well if Europe does it then that means its cool once again. Like health care, the US must try to imitate them in every way cause they are just that cool.
Looks like Europe has finally pulled its head out of its ass on the global warming fraud. Maybe the low-information voters in the US will take note.
Green Fade-Out
Europe to Ditch Climate Protection Goals
By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Brussels
The EU's reputation as a model of environmental responsibility may soon be history. The European Commis ...[text shortened]... , "it will be increasingly difficult for Germany to successfully carry out pioneering policies."
Originally posted by Great King RatYou Dutch aren't so bad. You've got your oddities but you're harmless.
What's interesting is that here in the Netherlands a quite often heard fear is that we're becoming more and more like America. Politically as well as physically (i.e. we're getting fatter and fatter).
Originally posted by sasquatch672
Mmm. Hadn't considered that. Which Europe is cool though - Germany, or Greece? It matters.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091023161413AAx6nS9
In Zweites Buch, Hitler portrayed the U.S. as a dynamic, "racially successful" society that practiced eugenics and segregation and followed what Hitler considered to be a wise policy of excluding "racially degenerate" immigration from eastern and southern Europe.
Originally posted by sasquatch672There is absolutely nothing in there that supports your bizarre idea that climate change is a vast left wing conspiracy. At best, some elements of the EU want to retreat from ambitious previously established goals regarding renewables, energy savings and emission reductions. Still what will remain in place is far more than anything that has been proposed in the US even by "liberals". Imagine the screaming by right wingers if the US government adopted these measures:
Looks like Europe has finally pulled its head out of its ass on the global warming fraud. Maybe the low-information voters in the US will take note.
Green Fade-Out
Europe to Ditch Climate Protection Goals
By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Brussels
The EU's reputation as a model of environmental responsibility may soon be history. The European Commis ...[text shortened]... , "it will be increasingly difficult for Germany to successfully carry out pioneering policies."
a 20 percent reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions;
raising the share of EU energy consumption produced from renewable resources to 20 percent;
and a 20 percent improvement in the EU's energy efficiency.
All of the goals were formulated relative to 1990 levels. And the targets could very well be met.
Originally posted by no1marauderAll I'm saying is that Europeans finally decided that bread on their tables is more important than blind obedience to some half-baked religion whose mysticism has as many holes in it as that of Scientology. Now if they can some get the lazy Greeks to work, they'll have most of their problems licked.
There is absolutely nothing in there that supports your bizarre idea that climate change is a vast left wing conspiracy. At best, some elements of the EU want to retreat from ambitious previously established goals regarding renewables, energy savings and emission reductions. Still what will remain in place is far more than anything that has been proposed ...[text shortened]... ll of the goals were formulated relative to 1990 levels. And the targets could very well be met.
Originally posted by sasquatch672If only the Greeks had Greco Roman culture like Britain and Germany...
All I'm saying is that Europeans finally decided that bread on their tables is more important than blind obedience to some half-baked religion whose mysticism has as many holes in it as that of Scientology. Now if they can some get the lazy Greeks to work, they'll have most of their problems licked.
Originally posted by sasquatch672That's not quite true, the Eurpoean union has made some adjustments to it's energy plan, and even allowed some fracking in selected areas, but your suggestion that Europe has just transformed itself into oil company paradise, and turned it's back on enviornmental protection, is very much mistaken. Please don't mistake selected adjustments for a total reverse of plans for Europe...it's just not so.
Looks like Europe has finally pulled its head out of its ass on the global warming fraud. Maybe the low-information voters in the US will take note.
Green Fade-Out
Europe to Ditch Climate Protection Goals
By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Brussels
The EU's reputation as a model of environmental responsibility may soon be history. The European Commis ...[text shortened]... , "it will be increasingly difficult for Germany to successfully carry out pioneering policies."