INTERVIEW - US Carbon Market Inevitable - EU's Dimas
Date: 18-Apr-08
Country: FRANCE
Author: Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
Dimas also told Reuters on the sidelines of a 17-nation climate conference in Paris that a plan by Bush unveiled on Wednesday to cap rising US emissions in 2025 recognised a need for ceilings but was not ambitious enough.
"I ask myself why the president does not accept the importance of a cap and trade system at the federal level," he said. "And to start working on it now."
"It's inevitable...The moment that the next administration comes in it will introduce a cap and trade system anyway. Congress is discussing it," he said.
If Congress imposed capping and trading it could quickly impose a ceiling on US emissions that would be achieved only in 2025 under Bush's plan, he added.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton all favour building a "cap and trade" system that would issue big polluters such as oil companies and power producers permits to emit carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming.
Under such a system, companies that exceed their emissions limits must buy more permits to pollute, while those that come in beneath their limits may sell the permits on a market. An EU market covers more than 10,000 industrial sites.
Dimas said that scientific evidence of the risks of global warming, such as more powerful storms, floods, crop failures and rising sea levels, seemed to be getting stronger.
DEEP CUTS
The EU has set a goal of cutting emissions by at least 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and by 30 percent if other nations agree to the tougher target.
"If the European Union reduces its emissions, even by 100 percent it would not be enough. We need all countries to contribute in reducing emissions, in a fair and equitable way," he said.
Developed nations such as the United States should lead the way, he added.
He also that the EU wanted a Group of Eight summit of leading industrialised nations in Japan in July to set long-term objectives to halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
"We need a 50 percent global reduction in relation to 1990," he said. A G8 summit last year agreed to "consider seriously" a goal of a 50 percent cut in emissions by mid-century.
Delegates in Paris said a US peak of emissions in 2025 could spur demands by developing nations for even more time to rein in their emissions. That in turn could delay a 2050 goal.
"Let's see how the discussions will go" before the G8, Dimas said.
"Science is telling us that if we let global warming go beyond 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), the negative impacts could be irreversible. Economists are telling us that the more we delay, the costlier it will be," he said.