EU wants to lower CO2 by 30% by 2020 unilaterally

By Hynek Fajmon, a member of the European Parliament

I have already described the European Union's fight to save the planet from "global warming" and "climate change" several times on the EU Portal blog. Right now, I have a serious reason to revisit the topic: the European Commission has recommended the EU to unilaterally pledge a 30% reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. That would increase its previous pledge of a 20% reduction by a hefty fifty percent. Do you find such a step incredible, especially after the disappearance of the Green Party from the Czech Parliament? So do I. But sadly, it is true. Fortunately, chances are slim that this nonsensical policy meant to raise the electricity prices for all the consumers in EU will pass.

Let us analyze the situation a little bit:

1. The EU has vowed to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 20% before 2020. It has already adopted an extensive network of laws that are designed to achieve this goal. It is the so-called climate-energy package that is based on new taxes for the sources producing greenhouse gases - such as cars, airlines, but especially power plants.
2. The EU has attended the Copenhagen summit in December 2009 with this ratified pledge and with the intent to instantly raise the figure to 30% if other countries of the world will join the efforts. However, other countries haven't pledged anything which is why the EU hasn't introduced its "improved commitment" yet. However, the EU is now proposing to increase the figure even without any commitment by others, unilaterally.
3. As I have already noted on this blog, the EU production of greenhouse gases only represents 15% of the global production. I have also mentioned that the European Commissions's own calculations indicate that the electricity of the EU member states would get 20-60 percent more expensive in various countries, depending on their mix of the energy sources. The rule is that the more coal your nation burns, the more expensive the electricity will become.
4. If the greenhouse explanation of the global warming is really true (and one can raise serious doubts about this statement, too), then it is necessary to regulate the world's emissions globally and not just the European portion. The European commitment to reduce the emissions by 20% by 2020 is therefore nonsensical because other countries may freely emit - and even the emission reductions that would be achieved in Europe for our expensive fees may be compensated elsewhere. Consequently, the global emissions don't have to drop at all in the absence of a global agreement and the declared goal to reduce the risk of "global warming" won't be achieved, either. The EU citizens' payments of tens of additional billions for energy will thus be futile.
5. An even more self-evident nonsense is to unilaterally inflate this previously adopted commitment from 20% to 30%. The European Union will add another tax burden upon the backs of the European businesses and households that still shiver because of the economic crisis. Once again, the declared goal can't be achieved in this way.

What is the purpose of all these steps? In my opinion, there is only one goal. Under the pressure from green lunatics from the whole world, the European Commission struggles to entirely liquidate the European business and to perform its own European green cultural revolution inspired by Mao Zedong's example. In the case of China, they also tried to achieve a "big leap forward" to quickly transform the agricultural country to an industrial one. In a similar way, the European Commission is attempting to achieve a centrally directed "big green leap forward" that should create "green jobs" and "green technologies" which, in practice, translates to biofuels, solar plants, and similar expensive fiddleshits whose profitability would be insufficient in the free markets.

The new nonsensical plan of the European Commission has already been opposed both by the German and French governments. Let's hope that the Czech government will be AGAINST this plan, too. The fact that the Green Party will no longer have its representatives in the government gives us some hope that the Czech attitude to these insane ideas of the European Commission will be sensible. That is to say, if these plans were realized, we would experience another wave of useless increases of energy prices.

Translation from Czech: Lubos Motl
Whom I thank for his permission