Key Policies
Climate Change
Climate change is one of the greatest environmental challenges, threatening not only the environment but also to risking a disruption of our economies and destabilisation of our societies. Higher temperatures, rapidly rising sea levels, more frequent storms, floods, droughts and heat waves are already visible today. In the longer term, climate change will put millions of coastal dwellers at risk and result in water and food shortages in many parts of the world.
The EU has been working to tackling climate change since the early 1990s. It has been actively involved in the adoption and implementation of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, which came into force on 16 February 2005.
Already in 2000, we launched the European Climate Change Programme (ECCP), under which we developed a range of cost-effective emission reduction measures. They will help the EU to reach its Kyoto targets (an 8% reduction below 1990 levels for the EU-15, and reductions of 6% or 8% for most of the newer Member States). Key among the ECCP measures is the Emissions Trading Scheme that kicked off on 1 January 2005. It is the world's first and largest international emissions trading scheme and covers some 11,500 installations in the EU, accounting for almost half of EU CO2 emissions.
However, it has always been clear to us that the Kyoto Protocol is only a first, albeit important step. At the UN Climate Change Conference in Montreal in 2005, we achieved agreement from 188 nations to start talks on future global climate change action (post-2012). These talks also include countries outside Kyoto, such as the US and Australia.
I will continue to press strongly for global action against climate change since I believe that despite the enormous challenges we are facing, the battle can be won if all countries make a contribution in line with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
On 23 January 2008 the European Commission proposed a major package of measures to achieve the EU's ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing renewable energy.
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