DO AS WE SAY, NOT AS WE DO:

EU moving further on climate change (Stephen Castle and James Kanter, June 4, 2007, International Herald Tribune)

Europe is moving toward far reaching changes to its emissions-trading system that could force large-scale polluters to pay for most, or even all, permits to produce climate-changing gases, European officials said Monday.

Although the European carbon-trading arrangement is the world's most functional, the countries that administer it acknowledged in a meeting this weekend in Essen, Germany, that the system was shadowed by some major flaws, including a government-credit allocation plan that allows companies to profit by lobbying for additional pollution permits. [...]

Others, including Lawrence Summers, the former president of Harvard University, argue that Europe has embarked on a project that needs a major overhaul to reduce emissions. So far, progress in Europe has been modest when compared with international commitments.

In the 15 EU countries that signed up to common Kyoto targets, the overall decline in emissions was about 2 percent by 2005 compared with 1990 levels, according to Andreas Barkman, the project manager for greenhouse gases at the European Environment Agency. The Kyoto target is 8 percent. Emissions under the trading system even went up slightly, by about 0.8 percent, between 2005 and 2006, Barkman said.

And they wonder why W doesn't take them seriously?

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 5, 2007 11:48 AM