Climate not an issue for small nations only: EU

Reiterating its stance on climate change and formalising support for the Copenhagen Accord, the European Union (EU) today said climate change was not an just an issue concerning small countries but was a global threat.

“Climate change is not just the responsibility of a small group of countries. We do not want to impose our solutions on anyone,” Teresa Ribera, Spain’s secretary of state for climate change and president of the EU Council of Environment Ministers, said while addressing a conference here today.

Expressing relief on the fact that the BASIC countries were working together on the issue, she said, “India and China are fully committed to the Copenhagen Accord and trust each other.”

Noting that the growth in demand for energy, especially in big emerging countries, was impressive, Ribera said the challenge for those countries was when to make a big offer.

This comes after the EU formally notified its willingness to be associated with the accord. It also submitted the EU’s established greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets for 2020. According to the agreement, there will be a unilateral commitment to reduce EU’s overall emissions by 20 per cent from 1990 levels. Additionally, there will be a conditional offer to increase this cut to 30 per cent, provided other major emitters agree to take their fair share of responsibility.

On the failure of climate talks in Copenhagen, she said, “Copenhagen was an important milestone, though it did not achieve much. Nobody in particular can be blamed for the failure. Everyone could have done better.”

EU offers support to IPCC
Following the glacier goof-up, the European Union (EU) has offered help to the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for improving its quality control process. In such lengthy reports, there could be some factually misleading data, said Ribera. However, she said there was a need to deal with the methodological issues. Ribera also stressed the need for more transparency in the IPCC system.

Supporting the panel, Ribera said the challenges before IPCC were huge and one mistake could not be a basis to challenge its general content.