NGOs meet Europe

This afternoon Europe's NGOs lead by Climate Action Networks Mathias Duwe met with chief European Union Negotiator Anders Turesson to discuss the EU's position in the negotiation.

As would be expected there was much discussion on establishing that any new EU finance initiates should ensure the allocation of new and additional funds rather than the reallocation of existing schemes. Certain representatives also pressed Turesson for an announcement on medium term goals. They were concerned that with all the discussions on short term focus and long term goals that there would be a deficit in the transitioning from one to the other (which actually is a point never really occured to me before...) Paul Cook from the Tearfund in the UK requested that the EU unilaterly offer numbers on how much additional ODA it would provide under any new agreement. I think this seems most unlikely from Mr Turesson's response...

There was also call for the EU to amend its current leveraging position with the US and China by offering to reduce emissions from 20% unilaterally and 30% with the US and China's support to targets of 30% and 40% respectively. It was suggested that the EU had already let the cat out of the bag on its willingness to reduce emissions by 30%and if it failed to do so it would lose legitimacy. Consequently a new more stringent leveraging target would be appropriate. Mr Turesson said that there was no agreement on this currently but did acknowledge that maybe they had made the suggestion re 20/30 too early.

Given the events of the afternoon (see Guardian) a particularly interesting point was raised about the EU's goal of a single treaty. Mr Turesson noted that the ultimate goal of the EU was integrity and efficiency of the treaty but he did acknowledge that the EU also required a multilateral approach and didnt want just an EU treaty. To that end, he said they were open to rational arguments for adoption of an amended Kyoto protocol and treaty.

My thoughts on the whole thing...
I actually found it very reasoned and well argued. The EU is clearly proud of its role as a foreward thinking block and is keen to reach an effective agreement. That said, of course they could be doing even more and providing futher clarification and transparency with regards to their proposals but all in all I felt reasonably pleased to be an EU citizen.