Polish PM Says EU Nearing Climate Deal In Dec
FRANCE: November 14, 2008
PARIS - Poland's prime minister said on Thursday he believed a deal in
December on a European Union climate package had come closer following his
talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on the issue.
Poland and other ex-communist EU members are worried that the package, which
aims to slash emissions of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) by a fifth by
2020, will harm their economies, already reeling from the global financial
crisis.
"I must say our points of view are very close to each other now," Prime
Minister Donald Tusk told a news conference after his talks with Sarkozy at
the Elysee Palace.
"We are without doubt much closer to success at the December meeting (of EU
heads of state and government) than only a few weeks ago."
"There will also be good proposals for other countries that were worried
about some elements of the package," he added.
Tusk said he would invite the prime ministers of the Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania to a
meeting with Sarkozy in the Polish Baltic port of Gdansk on December 6.
"We (Tusk and Sarkozy) promised each other we will do our necessary share of
the work to ensure we can say in Gdansk that we have reached agreement (on
the package) and will take that deal to the (European) Council," Tusk said.
Earlier, a senior Polish government source said there had been progress on
Warsaw's proposal to introduce upper and lower limits on the price of
permits to emit CO2 -- a "price corridor" -- under the EU's Emissions
Trading Scheme (ETS), the flagship of the 27-nation bloc's efforts to combat
global warming.
The ex-communist nations mostly oppose introducing full auctioning of
emissions permits for utilities as of 2013. Poland, which wants a more
gradual move to full auctioning, has said it may veto the package if its
demands are not met.
Poland has also proposed another mechanism that would make the climate
package more acceptable for its coal-based economy.
The "specific fuel benchmarking-auctioning" would set free emission quotas
for producing a certain amount of energy that would equal the emissions by
the cleanest and most technologically advanced energy producer from a
certain source.
Other utilities would only have to buy permits to cover the difference
between this set amount and their real emissions.
The senior source said Poland could be offered some limited form of
benchmarking-auctioning for a few years, not until 2020 as it would prefer.
Sarkozy has made clinching the climate accord in December one of the French
EU presidency's top priorities and many analysts say he may be open to
concessions.
(Writing by Gareth Jones and Gabriela Baczynska; editing by James Jukwey)
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
|