Environmental emergency

Not a day now goes past without the “environmental question” being at the centre of some Community initiative. Sometimes the initiatives in question are merely occasions for study or political debate. They also take the form of the presentation of Green Papers (perhaps too many?) by the Commission or of reports of the European Parliament. But the environment has now reached the very highest levels of the Eu with the presence of ecological issues, combined with those of energy and economic development, on the agenda of the next summit of heads of state and of government. The greenhouse effect, polluting emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, the reduction in the production of waste, the lesser use of fertilizers, and the defence of the marine environment: all these issues form part of the current debate in Brussels and Strasbourg. They also require not only good intentions, but also concrete decisions that are binding on member states, businesses and citizens. REDUCING GREENHOUSE GASES. Last week was distinguished by various events in this new “ecological direction” of the Eu. The European Parliament (Ep), in fact, following up a communication of the Commission in January, and in view of the European Council on 8-9 March, has adopted a Resolution which underlines “the urgent need to take concrete decisions at the global level to tackle climate change”. Several theses of the Barroso Executive are thus taken on board in the Resolution: to obtain significant results “we need to reduce by 30% greenhouse gas emissions by 2020”. The EP also thinks it necessary to promote “energy efficiency, also through tax breaks, a review of the system of trading carbon quotas, and a growing recourse to renewable sources, especially in the transport sector”. In the same parliamentary session, another report of environmental nature was also adopted: it concerns the management of refuse, which is causing growing environmental problems and rising costs in all the countries of the EU. HANDS OFF CARS. In this phase it seems that environmental awareness is being reinforced in the public opinion of almost all member states; but at the same time “good practices” are coming into conflict with lifestyles that are widespread, firmly entrenched and hard to die and with economic interests that consider the protection of nature a “luxury”, despite the fact that human health is dependent on it. Proof of such resistance was forthcoming recently, when the Commission took steps to limit C02 emissions for new cars. This led to a war of words within the Barroso Commission, and especially a tug of war between the Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas and the Commissioner for Industry Gunter Vehreugen. Leading European car manufacturers, especially in Germany, and various political leaders (even Angela Merkel, current President of the European Council), immediately stepped up their pressure on the Executive. The actions of lobbies are also being stepped up within the European institutions: on the one side, those exercised by businesses, on the opposite side those operated by ecological and consumer associations. “POST KYOTO”. Apart from the dynamics within the EU in this field, the “external fronts” remain open, since environmental protection is a question that necessarily transcends the frontiers of states and of Europe itself and is increasingly posed as one of the major emergencies being generated by economic globalization. On the occasion of the second anniversary of the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, Commissioner STAVROS DIMAS declared: “Climate change represents a very grave threat on a world scale that can be prevented only with a solution of a similar dimension”. Dimas urged “the international community to start negotiations as a matter of urgency on an exhaustive treaty” that would involve all countries on climate change and provide a follow up to the Kyoto Protocol that is due to expire in 2012. THE BACKLASH OF NATURE. A further environmental alarm was registered in recent days. It came from the Common Research Centre of the European Commission. The CRC has published a study called “Marine and Coastal Dimension of Climate Change in Europe”; it was presented during a conference on “Climate Change and the European Water Dimension”, promoted by the German Presidency of the EU in Berlin from 12 to 14 February. The research tends to show that “global warming is adversely influencing many European ecosystems”, including those of marine coasts, stretching from Scotland to the shores of the Mediterranean. The authors assert, for example, that the variations registered in sea levels “interferes with other critical processes that comprise the movement of the tides, the conditions of marine ice, evaporation and tectonic phenomena of various type, such as the raising of land masses due to the melting of glaciers, that require constant monitoring”. The CRC emphasises that the increase of greenhouse gas, the raising of surface temperatures and that of sea levels, are often “at the origin of catastrophic climatic phenomena”, such as “torrential rains, drought, tempests and floods that involve enormous human and environmental costs”.