This week’s European Summit ended without the
European Union formally committing to any specific
financing proposal to help provide developing countries
with €100 billion a year to fund climate efforts. As during
last week’s environment ministers’ meeting the main
reason for stalling negotiations came from the group of
nine Eastern European countries led by Poland, which
disagreed with the original burden-sharing proposal
tabled by the Swedish presidency on the first day of the
Summit:. According to this proposal internal subdivision
of the funding would be determined according to
emissions, disregarding gross-national-product (GNP)
considerations. The opposition to pay any more than
their wealthiest neighbours caused the group of nine to
refuse another amended proposal on Thursday,
concluding the Summit with no formal agreement. The
Summit endorsed the conclusions of last week’s meeting –
a 85-90% reductions in the emissions of developed
countries by 2050 with respect to 1990 levels- but any
decision on EU climate change financing is forwarded to
after the Conference of Parties in Copenhagen this coming
December. An explicit role in setting the European annual
contribution to the €22-50 billions needed annually from
international public financing will be played by
“comparable commitments” from other countries, as the
conclusions stated. No position was taken by the
European leaders on left-over emission allowances from
the Kyoto period and if and how they could be banked to
a Kyoto follow-up. The Summit concluded simply that
European and non-European countries should be treated
in a non discriminatory manner. The pessimism over the
possibility to look for support for an international
agreement inside the EU has pushed some countries to
look outside the Union: according to a statement of
Nicolas Sarkozy, France and Germany are working on a
proposal to present during the Copenhagen negotiations
alongside Brazil.

 Emission Trading Monitor

• This news is extracted from the Emission Trading Monitor : a CMCC weekly column that summarises the latest news on international climate change agreements, the updates on the carbon market and the energy and technology updates in the realm of climate change. Go to the web page and see all previous issues since March 2007.
• This week: EU Summit ends without progress on funding details, Serpec shows free abatement possibilities in the
  EU, Debate on US climate bill gets to faster pace and, as usual the situation of the Carbon Market – Download the 26-30 Cctober, 2009 Newsletter [pdf – 156 Kb]