Crisis no reason to dilute climate plan - EU
By Marcin Grajewski
BRUSSELS, Sept 24 (Reuters) - The global financial crisis is no reason to water down the European Union's flagship plan to fight climate change, the bloc's environment chief said on Wednesday.
Even before the current financial meltdown, many EU companies said the programme, involving cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, would hurt them by boosting costs.
Some EU officials now say privately the economic downturn highlighted by bankruptcies and takeovers in the financial sector may lead the bloc to adopt a less ambitious plan as governments feel pressure from slowing economies.
EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas brushed off the suggestions.
"The financial crisis is here one day and it is gone another day. But the climate crisis will be there always and we must face it," Dimas told reporters after a meeting with Polish Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki. France hopes to clinch a deal on the climate programme during its EU presidency in the second half of 2008, but Poland had big reservations, fearing the plan in its current shape would hurt the economy too much.
EU leaders have to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, to fight global warming, and to get 20 percent of energy from renewable sources.
Legislation spelling out how to achieve the targets is now being negotiated among the EU's 27 governments and the European Parliament.
Nowicki reiterated Poland's opposition to full auctioning of emissions permits to the power sector from 2013, under the planned emission trading scheme, saying the system should be phased in until 2020.
He argued electricity prices would increase in Poland more than in any other of the EU's 27 member states, because the country produces 95 percent of its power from coal, which emits more carbon dioxide than other sources such as gas.
Dimas pledged to take Poland's concerns into account as the Commission seeks to forge a compromise.
"We don't want to create any social and economic problems in Poland," he said.
