UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the European Union on Friday to set an example to the rest of the world and maintain its climate change goals despite the global economic downturn. European Union leaders have came under pressure to roll back their climate-change plans as the global financial crisis bites.
"One crisis must not become an obstacle to action on another," Ban said in a statement. The European Union, he said, "should continue to provide leadership on climate change, including through its ambitious energy and climate policy package. "I see the recent decisions taken at its summit in Brussels in this light.
I hope the EU will soon conclude its package, which has the potential to foster green growth and create millions of new jobs." Ban said that developing countries "look to the industrialised countries for leadership," and as negotiations continue "toward a new agreement on climate change by the end of 2009, the industrialised countries must indicate their willingness to do more to finance clean technology and to help developing countries adapt to the inevitable effects of climate change."
The upcoming climate meeting in Poznan, Poland, "offers a chance to send precisely the right signal, and I very much hope that world leaders will seize the opportunity," Ban said. In Paris, the head of the UN climate change body said it would be dangerous if the European Union failed to meet its December deadline to agree its climate-change policy.
"There is a danger that the EU be seen as not delivering on the commitment before the end of the year on how they intend to achieve" the target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Convention on climate change, told AFP in Paris.
De Boer said there had been a huge positive response from the international community when the EU originally agreed on the 20 percent target. "But if I look at (Thursday's) conclusions ... they seem to open the door of possibly not finalising the package," he said. "It's a matter of deadline, because the package was going to be finalised in December at the same time that governments are meeting in Poznan" to discuss climate change.
De Boer said the idea had been that the EU would be able to say: "This is how we intend to achieve the minus 20 percent," but if it was unable to reach agreement, it would miss the deadline. Dissenting voices were heard at an EU summit Wednesday and Thursday that the measures have become too expensive given the global financial crisis.
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