Europe makes pitch for green leadership

By Paul Taylor

BRUSSELS: Whether you think it's a green revolution, a missed opportunity or a lurch toward economic suicide, the European Union's plan to fight climate change is an ambitious pitch for global leadership. "Energy and environment policy is the New Frontier of European integration," says Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the Green member of the European Parliament from Germany who was a student revolutionary in France the '60s.

Leading the world by example in combating global warming could do for Europe what the Coal and Steel Community did in the 1950s and the drive for the euro in the 1990s, he contends. The European Commission's president, José Manuel Barroso, seems to think so, since he has made climate protection his top priority and hence a key credential of his undeclared campaign for reappointment in 2009.

It's easy to see why. Europe's new Big Idea has cross-party political and public support and is gaining backing from economists who see high-quality growth and jobs from clean energy outweighing extra costs to carmakers and curbs on smokestack industries. True, utilities in Germany and France and their political supporters are resisting the EU's proposals to split their power generation and transmission networks into separate businesses to spur competition and bring down prices.

EU trust-busters have European energy giants like E.ON and RWE and EDF and Gaz de France in their sights. Wulf Bernotat, chief executive of E.ON, Europe's biggest utility, complained that the commission was a bigger threat to European energy companies than Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly.

Industries with political clout such as Germany's luxury auto manufacturers and pan-European steel makers warn that the EU's green plans could drive them out of Europe or out of business. The commission's vice president for enterprise, Günter Verheugen, who is German, echoed those concerns when he said last week: "I am all for setting an example for the rest of the world. But I am against committing economic suicide."

Yet Europe seems to have picked the right political timing. The United States turned its back on international efforts to fight climate change in 2001 when President George W. Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol, refusing binding emissions curbs on economic grounds and questioning the scientific basis. With strong signals that whoever wins the White House in November will seek to re-engage in global negotiations to save the planet, Brussels sees an opportunity to set the agenda if it can deliver on its own objectives.

EU leaders agreed last year to cut greenhouse gas emissions by one-fifth from 1990 levels, use 20 percent of renewable energy sources in power production and 10 percent of biofuels made from plants in transport - all by 2020. The decision is already changing the European landscape and seascape with wind turbines, solar panels and hydroelectric plants springing up.

That is just the start, to judge by the zeal of the European Commission's green young guard. The EU aims to reduce its overall energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020 through efficiency measures such as changing almost every light bulb on the Continent by law. With a fervor once reserved for visions of a united Europe, commission officials depict a new age in which office buildings and homes will produce more energy than they consume because of solar panels, wind generators and biomass.

The surplus would be sold into the electricity grid. No wonder Big Energy is less than ecstatic at the prospect. "No country that has made big investments in renewables has regretted it," said the commission's energy spokesman, Ferrán Tarradellas. For green campaigners, the boldness of the EU program is deceptive.

"A 20 percent emissions reduction for the EU from 1990 levels is already only 10 percent in reality, because we have reduced 10 percent already," said Stefan Singer of the World Wide Fund for Nature. An official commission estimate predicts that the EU will have cut emissions by 15.9 percent in 2010 from 1990 levels. That makes its headline goal look modest rather than revolutionary.

To be continue in other article...

(Jakarta, Kamis 21 February 2008, 07.39 pagi)

Re-publish by Jacob Paradox from link (www.routers.com),(www.iht.com), (www.routers.com), (www.nytimes.com)