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2nd July, 2009
STOCKHOLM: Winning support for a new international agreement on curbing global warming will be the most important task during Sweden’s six-month European Union presidency, the head of the EU’s executive commission said Wednesday.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told Swedish Radio the critical event will be the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen scheduled for December. The conference will seek to reach a new global deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
“The decisions taken there will affect the world for possibly many generations,” Barroso said. “The ideal has to be a binding agreement for the developed countries in terms of emissions and also some mechanisms to get developing countries on board.”
Negotiations over the past 18 months have deadlocked because of industrial countries’ demands that developing countries spell out how they intend to contribute to combating climate change, while the developing countries want specific commitments from the richer countries on deep emissions cuts.
For their part, poor nations want specific commitments from richer countries on deep C02 emission cuts.
Barroso suggested that obstacles in reaching a new environmental agreement would not come from the 27-member EU.
“The problem is not the European Union, the problem is to get others on board,” he said.
EU members have already pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, a number that could be increased to 30 percent if other countries sign on.
Speaking of his own future as head of the EU’s executive branch, which will soon expire, Barroso expressed confidence that the new European Parliament would approve a second term.
Sweden took over the rotating EU presidency from the Czech Republic on Wednesday.
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