Italy rocks EU climate meet, others eye global deal
By Pete Harrison, Reuters, Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:04pm EDT
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LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - Italy kept up the pressure to dilute European Union climate proposals on Monday, but most other EU nations reaffirmed the goals and stressed they would approach global talks this year in "full negotiating mode."
Global talks in Poland in December have been overshadowed by worries the United States is nowhere near ready to discuss a global deal to fight global warming, but environment ministers meeting in Luxembourg called for unified action.
They also reminded developing countries they would have to meet industrialized nations half way with their own cuts of at least 15 percent to gases blamed for climate change.
But the 27 EU nations are far from unified.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi shocked other EU leaders at a summit last week by unexpectedly threatening to veto EU plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions by a fifth by 2020 unless its concerns for domestic industry are met.
Rome fears the cost of combating climate change will harm its industry, already plagued by a loss of competitiveness to emerging economies.
And Italian Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo told reporters at Monday's meeting she wanted proposals to include a clause allowing the package to be revised once its costs have been fully assessed.
"We have many requests for changes, including the introduction of a revision clause," she said.
Deforestation
But several ministers said that while Italy had raised concerns about the plan's economic impact during their discussions, it had not demanded a revision clause.
"Italy is like everybody else," said French Ecology Minister Jean Louis Borloo. "There are some points on which it cares more, and others on which it expresses it worries."
The European Commission estimates the costs for Italy would not exceed 13 billion euros ($17.48 billion), while Italy's employers lobby Confindustria has cited costs of up to 27 billion.
Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said he expected environment ministers could solve critic's concerns by December, adding that the internal debate had not been quite as fiery as the weekend's rhetoric had suggested.
"My understanding was clearly that several ministers were more critical in what they stated to the home media than they were here in discussions," he said.
Environment ministers agreed a document stressing the need for global emissions to peak by 2020 and then start dropping in order to prevent global temperatures rising to dangerous levels 2 degrees Celcius above pre-Industrial levels.
They said that would involve developing nations cutting their emissions 15 to 30 percent below business at usual levels, partly by slowing deforestation.
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