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Background
Background
Paper [pdf, 277 KB, English]
2005
has been a particularly important year for international and European
climate policy. With the Kyoto Protocol's entry into force, industrialised
countries are subject to legally binding commitments to limit their
emissions of greenhouse gases. The start of the European Emission
Trading Scheme, along with the debates that preceded it, brought
the consequences of the practical implementation of Kyoto commitments
to the attention of policy-makers and businesses in the new and
old EU Member States alike.
While
discussions are ongoing on the best ways to fulfil the Kyoto commitments,
an even more difficult debate is already on the agenda: the question
of how the future climate policy regime will be shaped and what
commitments will be taken after 2012, when the first commitment
period under the Kyoto Protocol expires. At the international level,
the first discussions on this subject was held in November/December
2005 at the Conference
of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
/ meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP) in
Montreal. At the European Council in March 2005, EU heads of government
took a first position in this regard by agreeing on a flexible target
of 15-30 % greenhouse gas reductions compared to 1990 by 2020 (see
Presidency
conclusions, pp. 15-16 [pdf, 236 KB, English] ).
While
EU climate change policy has been a subject of common debate and
action for the EU-15 since the early 1990s, new EU Member States
have had much less time to enter into this debate. The new Member
States adopted the current European climate change provisions as
part of the acquis communautaire with their accession. Thus, full
involvement of the new Member States in the climate policy discussion
is still not given in practice. Domestic factors, such as limited
resources and the relatively low priority the issue is given in
public debate, contribute to this situation. However, in order to
exert adequate influence on decision-making at the international
and especially the EU level and make informed contributions, a high
level of public awareness in new Member States, Acceding and Candidate
Countries will be needed.
Views
regarding Article 3, Paragraph 9, of the Kyoto Protocol (Submission
by Austria on behalf of the European Community and its Member States)
[pdf, 98 KB, English]
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