EU: Fine Nations That Don't Cut Greenhouse Gas
Copyright ©2000 Reuters Limited
June 22, 2000
LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - European Union environment ministers said Thursday that countries which fail to meet their international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be made to pay financial penalties.
The ministers met in Luxembourg to hone the position the 15-nation bloc will take to negotiations later this year to decide the rules for complying with the Kyoto Protocol which limits richer nations' greenhouse gas emissions.
At Kyoto in 1997, a group of industrialized countries agreed to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases -- those that contribute to global warming, primarily carbon dioxide -- by an average of 5.2 percent of 1990 levels by 2008-2012.How this will be enforced is a thorny issue that must be decided by the parties to the UN climate change convention in the Hague in November.
The EU wants a compliance regime ``with a clear economic impact ... to both discourage non-compliance and compensate for damage to the environment,'' the ministers said in a statement.
According to a source at the EU's executive Commission, this should include fines for non-compliance, paid into a fund to support projects reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The negotiating stance hammered out over several hours on Friday will have to bear up to pressure from the United States and other countries which favor a more flexible approach to the emissions reductions.