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Climate change

Questions and results

General issue

Results

Question reference

A Do you believe that climate change is a serious issue that needs to be addressed jointly by your state and its international partners?

UK question: 21. Do you believe that climate change is a serious issue that needs to be addressed jointly by the UK and its international partners?

EU question: 16. Do you believe that climate change is a serious issue that needs to be addressed jointly by your home state and its international partners?


B The European Union is aiming to be a world leader in the fight against climate change, cutting emmissions of greenhouse gases by 20% by 2020. Is this an appropriate area for joint action by the member states?

UK question: 41.

EU question: 34.


C Which of these institutions set up the first emissions (greehouse gasses) trading scheme for heavy industry in order to address the threat of climate change?

Abbreviations
OECD: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
G20: group of 19 industrialised nations plus the EU
NAFTA: North American Free Trade Association
EU: European Union
UN: United Nations

UK question: 37.

EU question: 30.


Analysis

These three questions about climate change do not considerably enhance our understanding of whether or not there is an anti-EU element in the UK. What we can say for certain is that the UK subjects appear more sceptical of climate change than their EU counterparts. This may be due to recent media reports doubting some climate change data. However, while both A and B represent essentially the same question, there is a small swing towards supporting action against climate change with B. This could be due to the information provided being more specific, the absence of the word “serious” in question B, or perhaps support for regional efforts via the European Union. It certainly does not tend to support the theory that the mere mention of the EU turns a positive outlook on an issue into a negative one.

From the researcher’s perspective it would seem that climate change is an issue that needs to be tackled on a global basis, and failing that, on a regional basis. At the current time we do have a global framework, by way of the UN brokered Kyoto Protocol to the UNIPPC. However, this international agreement ends in 2012. Attempts to organise a successor at the recent Copenhagen 2009 summit ended in what is widely perceived to be failure. The EU attended the conference with the intention of increasing its offer of emissions reductions from 20% up to 30% by 2020, if an agreement could be reached with the other states attending. But this was not to be. It currently remains unclear whether the EU will press ahead with these more stringent cuts on a unilateral basis.

Looking further ahead, the UK had previously announced that it was looking towards 60% emissions reductions by 2050, and has more recently increased this to 80% in the same time frame.

On a regional level airbourne industrial emissions have been a significant issue, cross-border. Recognised since the period of de-forestation and water pollution, promoted by sulphur dioxide emissions in Western Europe falling as “acid rain” in Central and Eastern Europe – this problem clearly called for a cross-border, regional regime.

The endorsement of the both the UK and EU subjects (in questions A and B) reflects the need for the European Union to be represented as a single group (as well as member states individually) in negotiations over international treaties concerning climate change.

Similar issues arise in relation to global warming, and the EU has introduced a system that has the aim of reducing carbon emissions over the longer term. The central mechanism for this, and the subject of question C, is the EU Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS). However, to be precise, question C has a key word missing: “international”.

Which of these institutions set up the first international emissions (greehouse gasses) trading scheme for heavy industry in order to address the threat of climate change?

The answer to that question is the European Union, with the EU-ETS. Without the “international” portion of the question it is difficult to form a direct answer. Some emission trading systems were working in the USA prior to the EU-ETS, but these were not based on “greenhouse gasses”, rather they addressed the older issues associated with pollution, eg acid rain. Many respondants answered “Kyoto”. In fact Kyoto is a UN-backed treaty which forms the basis for emissions reductions and the setting up of emissions trading schemes, but does not actually set these up itself.

Since there is an error in the question it is reasonable to suggest that anyone answering United Nations, Kyoto or European Union was on the right track - since provisions in this area are interrelated. From that perspective it is a fairly stunning achievement by either set of respondants to achieve 65% and 92% between the accepted answers.

On a more general note the EU-ETS, launched in 2005, has not been without its teething troubles. In phase I of the EU-ETS (2005-2007) there was an over-allocation of allowances, which arguably distorted the EU markets and showed some of the internal stresses of the EU in that some countries were more generous than others - displaying some national self-interest. The losers from this were the UK, Spain, Ireland and Austria, whose industries had to buy additional allowances from other EU states (who had over-allocated).

Phase II (2008-2012) appears more likely to deliver a more even distribution of allowances, but will still over-allocate due to the effects of the recession of the past few years. An additional problem is that some countries are still trying to over-allocate, and are being challenged by the European Commission. In September 2009 Estonia and Poland both won cases in the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) Court of First Instance that annulled the National Allocation Plans (NAPs) that had been agreed by the Commission, on the basis that the Commission had exceeded its powers. This technically leaves both countries without enforceable emissions controls for phase II, which is now almost half way through. The status today is that the Commission has rejected, again, the NAPs of both countries, and appealed to the ECJ against the decision of the Court of First Instance.

Looking forward to phase III of the EU-ETS (2013-2020) it is hoped that the new system of a gradually reducing, EU-wide cap on emissions will promote a more stable system, introduced with the revision to the EU-ETS Directive in 2009, and greater investment in clean and renewable energy production.

 

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