The Czech presidency’s arduous path to a climate agreement

At the conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held this year in December in the city of Copenhagen the international community is to reach an agreement on joint steps to prevent further deterioration of the climate change situation and to protect human life and the economy against the inevitable consequences following the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.

As one of the greatest producers (historically and currently) of greenhouse gases, the EU plays a prominent role in the fight against climate change. During the country’s presidency of the Council of the European Union over the past six months the Czech Republic has borne the main responsibility for negotiating both inside and outside the EU on the subject of the future regime for climate protection and for leading the discussion on the official position of the EU on all key aspects in international negotiations under the heading of the UNFCCC. The Czech presidency was charged with laying the groundwork for establishing the EU’s joint commitments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and effective support for developing countries, especially using financial mechanisms and the transfer of clean technologies to slow the growth of greenhouse gases and their impact on climate change.

The Czech Republic prudently grasped energy policy as a presidential priority, as this subject is inextricably tied to any successful solution to the problem of global warming. The matter of international climate negotiations was addressed during the Czech presidency at two EU summits, several meetings of the EU Environment Council and, especially during the second half of the Czech term, the EU Finance Council, where the Czech Republic led joint discussions among Member States and prepared support materials for these sessions. During the presidency UNFCCC work groups also met twice (for the first time this year) in Bonn; their negotiating marathon is to culminate at December’s conference in Copenhagen. Global climate change was also a key subject at meetings between the EU and key partners for a successful agreement in Copenhagen, including summits in the United States and China and during international negotiations with India, Japan and other important global players at meetings of the G20 and G8 groups, which the Czech Republic attended as the presiding country of the EU.

The EU is regarded as the “workhorse” of climate negotiations. In its presidential declaration, the Czech Republic made a commitment to maintain and further expand this position. Martin Bursík, chairman of the EU Environment Council, stated after his meeting with European colleagues in April that the agreement in Copenhagen is an “absolutely essential condition for climate protection and our economic development”.[2] The current EU plan prior to the December conference (introduced by the European Commission and ratified in the spring by the EU Environment Council and the Finance Council) sets forth the EU’s commitment to a 20% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2020 and to increase this target figure to 30% if additional advanced states make a similar commitment (to date 30% is the highest commitment from a wealthy country).

However, it would appear that in several key areas these confident pledges have not been transformed into concrete actions, and the truly ambitious commitments from the EU with respect to reducing emissions and supporting developing countries will not be quickly fulfilled. The European Council’s March report dedicates five pages to the diversification of fossil fuel (natural gas and oil) supplies, while the subject of climate negotiations receives a few scant paragraphs. However, if growth of the average global temperature is to be kept below 2 °C[3], the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) asserts that it will be necessary for EU Member States and the world’s other advanced countries to reduce 1990 emission levels by 25–40 % by the year 2020, 80–95 % by mid-century. Safeguarding energy security in light of these figures should mean massive support for energy efficiency and renewable resources rather than dragging out our fatal dependence on fossil carbon. 

Viewed from the outside, the EU has chosen a wait-and-see strategy, in a certain sense threatening mutual trust between poor and affluent countries. Agreement between these states is essential for the success of international negotiations under the UNFCCC. Despite the fact that EU Member States made commitments to support the reduction of emissions and fair adaptive measures in developing countries, this “fair share” remained unspecified at the end of the Czech presidency. In its January communiqué, the European Commission estimated that the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions would be EUR 175 billion annually until 2020, half of which should be invested in developing countries. Estimates of the resources necessary for adaptive measures in developing countries range between EUR 23 billion and EUR 54 billion annually up to the year 2030. 

Without even stating the level of their own support for a low-carbon model of development in the world’s developing countries, the EU had no problem defining conditions for these developing countries: reductions in the growth of greenhouse gases of 15–30 % by 2020 over the “business-as-usual” scenario. At the same time, developing countries have a substantially lower level of responsibility for existing greenhouse gas emissions. Although China, for example, is the largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world today, per capita emissions there are still three times less than in the Czech Republic and nearly five times less than in the USA.

The EU has also been unable to specify mechanisms to generate funds to battle climate change. The EU hasn’t expressed a clear preference for either of the two proposals: the model for drawing resources from the auction of emission permits [4] or from a fund based on regular financial contributions. Also unclear is the Union’s idea for the administration of future climate money. Does it favour an institution like the World Bank? Or would it accept the control of financial flows by Convention members themselves? During the Czech presidency the EU couldn’t even manage to produce a clear declaration on whether funds earmarked for the fight against climate change will increase current commitments for official development aid.

Despite the prevailing optimism at the beginning of the Czech presidency that the EU would continue to pursue the commitments made in the December climate-energy package and boldly take charge of international negotiations along with the new Obama administration, the certain weakening of the Czech presidency after the fall of the Topolanek government, speculation within the EU over the internal division of joint commitments, fears over the lingering financial crises and perhaps even the reluctance of the USA and other advanced countries to make stronger commitments led to a decision to leave the ever-growing climate problem for the incoming Swedish presidency. 

[1] Human Impact Report 2009. Global Humanitarian Forum, Geneva 2009, 1.

[2] Ministry of the Environment press release, 15 April 2009. Environment ministers in Prague discuss ways to reach a climate agreement in Copenhagen.

[3] A “shared vision” based on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change and ratified by the international community in the Bali Action Plan. Scientists agree that exceeding these limits would produce a dramatic change in the global climate system and extremely negative societal and economic consequences.

[4] Emission permits will not be issued for free, but sold at auctions; part of the profits should be used for mitigating and adaptive measures in developing countries.