How green is the European Commission? It claimed on Thursday it was very green indeed. A leader in fighting climate change and cutting car pollution, it would now seek to become a green imperium, pushing others around the world to adopt its ways.
The European Union’s global environmental policies should become “one of the core objectives of EU external relations policy”, a mid-term review said. There should be EU-wide taxes to encourage good environmental behaviour.
After all, commissioner Stavros Dimas pointed out, much remained to be done. "Global emissions of greenhouse gases are rising, the loss of biodiversity is not yet under control, pollution is still harming public health and volumes of waste are increasing in Europe,” he said.
What was needed was more money and ensuring a green tinge to everything from energy to agriculture policy. It was a breathtaking power grab and a huge contrast to when Jose Manuel Barroso’s Commission took office.
Then, in its attempts to be business-friendly, it promised to cut red – and green – tape, and free enterprise to make money and create jobs.
Al Gore and Sir Nicholas Stern changed all that, and the EU embraced the environmental agenda as something around which most countries could rally.
At a summit in March, EU leaders set targets for 20 per cent of energy to come from renewable sources and for biofuel to make up 10 per cent of vehicle fuels by 2020. The EU’s emissions trading scheme, which debuted in 2005, would lead a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases between 1990 and 2020.
The change is still not happening fast enough for the green lobby. The so-called green 10 of leading environmental groups last week brought out their own report on the Barroso Commission. It gave it a 43 per cent fail grade, below that of the previous one, run by Romano Prodi from 1999-2004.
While performing well on climate change, it had ignored biodiversity, illegal logging and a whole host of issues, they said.
Matthias Duwe, of the Climate Action Network, said that the fixation on carbon reduction could prevent action in other areas.
Meanwhile, Barroso clung to the "dated notion that what’s good for the environment cannot be good for the economy”, said Jorgo Riss, of Greenpeace.
Mr Dimas’ spokeswoman disputed that. “We have seen a whole new approach to environmental issues. We have demonstrated that the environment and the economy are not two different issues. The environment can stimulate innovation.”
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