GERMAN INDUSTRY CAN CUT GREENHOUSE GAS, OFFICE SAYS
01.2.07 - Leído 112 veces. Enviar esta notaGermany needs to redouble its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and must respect its commitments on meeting lower targets, the head of the environmental protection office was quoted as saying on Monday
BERLIN, Germany; January 2, 2007.- Andreas Troge, president of the federal environment office, said Germany, Europe’s biggest polluter, had made pledges to cut carbon dioxide emissions in 2000 and should not now be fighting new allocation cuts assigned by the European Commission.
“Industry in Germany can do more,” Troge told the Handelsblatt business newspaper in an advance of an article to appear on Wednesday. He added he could not understand why industry was challenging the Commission’s tougher CO2 quotas.
“The BDI German industry association pledged in 2000 to lower CO2 emissions in the industrial sector by 45 million tonnes by 2010,” Troge said. He said he hoped the German protests would not damage the EU’s carbon trading scheme.
Germany takes over the EU’s rotating presidency in January and has pledged to make fighting climate change a top priority.
But under pressure from industry, the government has nevertheless been fighting a European Commission order to lower its future CO2 allocations to industry. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said Germany must obey the order.
The EU’s executive ruled Germany’s quota for 2008-2012, the second phase of the scheme, must not exceed 453 million tonnes per year, down from Berlin’s proposal of 465 million tonnes.
Energy companies such as RWE and E.ON expect to be hard hit by tougher targets and have said they may cancel investments in new power stations if the EU decisions turn out too heavy-handed.
Germany relies on highly polluting coal for half of its electricity needs so cannot quickly change its policies.
The EU caps emissions of CO2 — widely blamed for global warming — but allows affected firms to buy and sell permits, putting a price on carbon which is meant to encourage a switch to clean sources of energy.
(Reuters)
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