Earth Equity News

E.U. Leaders Drastically Weaken Their Emission Ambition. By James Kanter and Stephen Castle, IntHeraldTrib, December 12, 2008. "European leaders agreed on Friday to binding measures to curb global warming but pushed back deadlines and granted significant concessions to smokestack industries that said they were struggling in a hard economic climate. At the close of a two-day summit meeting, the leaders also endorsed a €200 billion, or $267 billion economic stimulus package of mostly national measures, which are devised to avert the worst effects of recession. But most of the focus was on the climate deal amid fears that the dire economic straits would result in a watering down of the package. In the end, the leaders stuck to their ambitious targets of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020, and insisted the goal would not be jeopardized by the breaks, granted mainly for East European countries and heavy manufacturers... But analysts and representatives from the renewable energy industry criticized the concessions made to East European countries fearing sky-high energy bills and to industries facing stiff foreign competition that will continue to receive some of their pollution permits for free, rather than having to pay for them. Critics say that will only allow industries to put off making fundamental improvements in their operations to reduce emissions."