EU hammers out pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions

European leaders applauded successful efforts by German chancellor Angela Merkel, current head of the European Union and a physicist, to guide the 27-member bloc in March to an agreement that is widely considered both a critical and impressive step in the battle against climate change.

“This was the most significant European Council [meeting] in which I have participated in terms of the consequences of our conclusions,” said José Barroso, president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, at a 9 March televised press conference following the conclusion of the two-day European Council meeting. “Europe has shown that it is possible to make important, ambitious decisions.”

Under the pact, achieved after months of negotiations, the EU will cut greenhouse gas emissions by one-fifth from 1990 levels and produce one-fifth of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. As part of the plan, the EU also set a 10% minimum target on the use of biofuels for transport by 2020.

The agreement aims to address climate change after the commitments for industrialized nations contained in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012. EU member states are among 140 governments worldwide that participate in Kyoto, which the US refused to ratify (see Physics Today, January 2002, page 26 ).

Through its pact, the EU hopes to limit global warming to no more than 2 °C above the overall global temperature in preindustrial times. Since the late 1800s, global surface temperatures have risen about 0.6 °C, and about 0.3 °C in the past 25 years alone. Published reports, including those by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), say that at some point beyond the 2 °C increase, a variety of cataclysmic events would take place.

In June, Merkel will host a G8 summit of leading industrial nations at which she will seek to persuade the US and Japan to agree to similar emissions reduction efforts. According to the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank based in Washington, DC, the US is responsible for 29% of global emissions of carbon dioxide from energy use since the mid-19th century, a greater share than any other nation in that period.

Large developing nations, including China and Brazil, would also be encouraged to contribute to the post-2012 efforts. If other governments sign up, the EU would boost its emissions reduction goal to 30% by 2020.

“We can say to the rest of the world, ‘Europe is taking the lead. You should join us in fighting climate change,’” Barroso said.

“Very difficult process”

The EU must still decide how to make cuts, allowing for compromise with member states opposed to mandatory domestic targets. Before EU goals can be met, the European Commission must convert the agreement and its various components into proposed legislation that will undergo scrutiny by the European Parliament and the European Council, both of which could suggest amendments. The entire process could take anywhere from six months to two years, according to Barbara Helfferich, a spokeswoman for EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. She noted that each of the 27 member states must also change its own laws to reflect any new EU legislation.

The 13-year goal is for the EU as a whole, Helfferich added. Each member state will set its own goal and reach a “burden-sharing agreement” with the others. Such agreements are a means of compromising with some coal-dependent states, including Poland and Hungary, that say they cannot afford to invest as much in wind and solar power as some of the EU’s other member nations have. “Twenty-seven member states have 27 different capacities. We need to have an agreement [in which] one of them [may] say, ‘I cannot do more than 2%,’ while another says, ‘I will take on the burden of 25%.’ It is a very, very difficult process,” Helfferich explained.

“WWF believes this is an historic agreement,” said Stephan Singer, head of European climate and energy policy at WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund), a global conservation, research, and environmental advocacy organization based in Switzerland. “The 30% target is an ambitious goal, but what is the alternative? Given the situation of the climate, every second day there is more catastrophic news. We are approaching the tipping point, and if [climate change] continues unabated, the economic cost will far outweigh the cost of cutting emissions.”

William Blyth, associate fellow at Chatham House, a London-based nonprofit organization dedicated to analyzing and promoting the understanding of international affairs, said the 20% emissions reduction goal “is about right, and it’s being fairly well received.” But he warned that future proposals to boost that goal to 30% or more could meet resistance, depending on when they are presented.

“It’s not easy to change direction in a hurry,” Blyth pointed out. “Five years down the line from now it would be tough. It’s a tricky balancing act.”

Trading scheme

The EU pact formalizes some emissions reductions efforts that are already under way in Europe. In January 2005, the EU adopted the Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Scheme, under which each member state has a national allocation plan that specifies caps on carbon emissions for individual power plants and other emissions sources. Each facility gets a certain emissions allowance for a particular period. To comply with the cap, facilities can either cut their emissions or buy allowances from other facilities.

In the scheme’s first two years, hard data on actual emissions had not yet been compiled, and member countries gave their industries such generous emission caps that there was no incentive for them to reduce emissions. Trading allowances glutted the market, and the price per allowance dropped from €30 ($40) per ton to well below €1 per ton.

“Now we can better predict what countries need and [we can] create a scarcity [of allowances],” Helfferich said. “Prices [for allowances] have shot up.” The plan’s scope will also be expanded to cover all greenhouse gases, not just CO₂. The aviation sector and power and paper plants, among other large polluters, will also have to abide by the pact’s regulations. The trading scheme is expected to carve 10% from the EU’s overall emissions.

Company initiatives

Some businesses in Europe and elsewhere have already taken steps to cut emissions on their own. Physicist Steven Koonin, chief scientist at BP plc, a London-based energy company and multinational oil corporation, said that, among other initiatives, the firm has begun a pilot hydrogen power program and is investing in wind power.

In BP’s hydrogen program, coal is burned to produce CO₂ and hydrogen; the CO₂ is separated out and buried underground while the hydrogen is burned to generate power. “Needless to say, it’s more expensive than the traditional way, just burning the coal and venting the CO₂ to the atmosphere,” Koonin acknowledged. “But we believe we can reduce costs.”

A couple of years ago the company built two pilot wind farms in the Netherlands, with a collective generation capacity of 26 megawatts, to learn about wind power operations and technology before investing significant funds in wind power production. Since last year BP has acquired two US wind companies and developed an agreement with a third for the purchase of wind turbines. This year the firm is on track to build five wind power generators in California, Colorado, North Dakota, and Texas, with a combined generation capacity of 550 MW. BP also recently established a research institute at the University of California, Berkeley, to investigate use of biofuels.

The firm’s US arm, BP America, is a member of US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), an alliance of US-based businesses and environmental organizations calling for new federal policies and legislation aimed at slowing, stopping, and reversing emissions (see Physics Today, December 2006, page 30 ). “It’s an ambitious goal,” Koonin said of the EU’s reduction target. “We’ll do everything we can to help them meet it.”

Gaining credibility

At Shell International BV, a division of Royal Dutch Shell plc, climate change adviser David Hone said the energy and petrochemical company began in 1998 to work toward cutting its global emissions by 5% from 1990 levels by 2010.

“Emissions would have risen by some 20 million tons since 1990 had we done nothing, but instead they have fallen by about 20 million tons,” Hone claimed. He added that Shell wanted to cut emissions on its own to show what could be done, to gain experience, and to give Shell the credibility to participate in global discussions about climate change.

Alcoa, a global aluminum production company, decided in 1993 to take steps to cut emissions, according to Patrick Atkins, director of technology for the manufacturer’s strategic energy solutions division. By 2003 Alcoa—also a USCAP member—had achieved its goal of reducing emissions by 25% from 1990 levels, largely by improving its process of feeding aluminum oxide into electrolytic cells to produce pure aluminum.

Uncertain US landscape

How the US will respond to Merkel’s entreaty this June to join the EU pact or whether it will enact more stringent legislation in the future is unclear. Representatives from the US State Department did not return telephone calls, but environmental experts were less than optimistic.

“The US would be likely to veto a cap [on emissions] if a bill came forward,” predicted Matt Banks, senior program officer with WWF’s climate change program in Washington, DC. “The administration is in a very different place than the American people are on the issue. It’s clear the country is ready to act—the majority of Americans realize climate change is here and want federal action.”

A new international poll conducted by the BBC found that 57% of Americans are concerned about global warming. The percentage is higher in most other countries. Two-thirds of all respondents “blame the US before any other country” for climate change, the poll found.

Global warming models paint a less-than-rosy picture. In the first installment of a report released in February, the IPCC warned that temperatures might rise far more than 2 °C, the level to which the EU pact seeks to limit global warming. The IPCC’s second installment, released in April, predicted that almost one-third of the world’s plant and animal species could be eradicated and said that alteration of the world’s weather systems could change rainfall patterns, unleash more violent storms, and increase the risk of drought, flooding, and water shortages. The third installment, due in May, will address how the worst consequences might be prevented.

Yet change may be afoot in the US with a Democratic Congress in place. In a surprise move, the US Supreme Court ruled in early April that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act by declining to regulate new-vehicle emissions standards to control the pollutants that scientists say contribute to global warming.

The high court’s ruling could lend weight to attempts by states to force the federal government to cut greenhouse gas emissions or to be allowed to do it themselves. According to the Pew Center for Climate Change, 15 states have set targets for emissions reductions and a 16th is expected to do the same later this year while Washington, DC, and 23 states have set standards specifying that electric utilities generate a certain amount of electricity from renewable sources. In the meantime, House Democrats have said they expect to pass global warming legislation by early July, and Senate leaders are working on a similar bill.