DG CLIMA's Metzger and Singer with WWF

Each country should perform a thorough control on nuclear for its citizens, merely because it is in its “courtyard”, EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik stated at the European Journalism Centre’s seminar Climate Action in Budapest. “You want to be safe in your country, go through the EIA, respect the norms of monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and ensure maximum transparency”.

When a company Member State decides to build nuclear installations, it has to go through the Environmental Impact Assessment. Naturally, the state has to check if the installation is complying.

Every country decides on its own energy mix, commissioner Potocnik said. “Our common concern is safety”, he underlined just before the EU Environmental Council in Godollo, Hungary.

Absolute vagueness would characterize Commission’s approach on nukes. Furthermore, the strong pre-assumption is that governments are responsible and their territories are actually their “courtyards”. Corruption in the nuke field and weakness of EIAs as well as of control especially in Eastern Europe show a rather shy Commission that ignores the massive anti-nuke populace. The “courtyard”, many suggest, should be the whole EU.

Artur Runge-Metzger, Director for climate strategy and international negotiations,
DG CLIMA, European Commission: “there is something in Europe, which is a holy Grail, and it’s called the energy mix. So it is not the Commission to say you must do this or that, we can do analyses and give you the numbers on how nuclear was treated. We respect the national decisions that were taken.”

Reactions in Europe were very strong against nuclear following Fukushima. However, Metzger added, one could not change a whole Roadmap after a couple of days (a.n.: the Roadmap 2050 was published a few days before the earthquake in Japan). “Currently there is a continuous opposition such as the moratorium in Germany, but the question is if this is going to lead to change of policy in terms of the phase-out. The model for 2050 in Germany, for instance, has no nuclear. All governments decided it was a transitional technology that will be gradually phased-out, therefore in 2050 in Germany there will be no nuclear in the energy mix.”

In other countries is different. In Poland, for instance, there were taken decisions to build nuclear capacity so that will be reflected in the model of 2050. Italy also wants to go in the direction of nuclear. There is no assumption that France will phase-out nuclear, it is a well established policy.

“The Commission is not prescriptive on that, it is a decision taken nationally, if there will be a decision against it it will be respected,” closed Metzger.

On July 22nd, the EU will come forth with a new directive on nuclear energy, Potocnik announced. The new directive will focus on safety measures for workers and locals. Energy Commissioner’s Oettinger suggestion to run the stress tests for all nuclear plants in Europe will also be part of the new norm.

Even though nuclear energy is part of the mix for many Member States, there is no provision related to the “cleanliness” of nuke. It is still considered “Carbon zero”, while the carbon footprint for uranium or plutonium mining is disregarded. Nuclear waste disposal and mining sterile, land-use change an no-go areas can also be converted in GHG emissions, but the Roadmap is rather silent about.

Stephan Singer, Director of Global Energy Policy, WWF International, concludes in a more radical manner, stating that the costly prices for nukes, hidden or overt, as well as its literal unusefulness, are to be summarized in an old German revolutionary slogan from the 70s – rather long, rhymed and… in German. Nonetheless, it contains the words “teuer” and “Scheisse”.

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I’m trying to get a political answer from an EU administrative guy on green jobs. The debate is on, though!

The European Commission has taken an important step in preparing for the full inclusion of aviation in the EU’s emissions trading system (EU ETS) from 1 January next year. The European Commission has decided on the historical aviation emissions which will be used to calculate the number of aviation allowances to be available from 2012.

Foto: Ama Tichie

Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action, said: ”Emissions from aviation are growing faster than from any other sector, and all forecasts indicate they will continue to do so under business as usual conditions. Firm action is needed. By publishing the data on which allocations will be based, we prepare for the full inclusion of aviation in the emissions trading system. ”

The decision on historical aviation emissions of 219,476,343 tonnes of CO2 represents the average of the estimated annual emissions for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 of all flights that would be covered by the EU ETS performed by aircraft operators to and from European airports. Based on this figure for average annual aviation emissions in 2004-2006, the number of aviation allowances to be created in 2012 amounts to 212,892,052 tonnes of CO2, and the number of aviation allowances to be created each year from 2013 onwards amounts to 208,502,525 tonnes of CO2.

The calculation of historic aviation emissions was based on data from Eurocontrol – the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation – and actual fuel consumption information provided by aircraft operators. Additional calculations were carried out to account for fuel consumption associated with the use of the auxiliary power units (APUs) on aircraft at airports.

EU emissions from aviation have increased fast – almost doubling since 1990. It is estimated that one passenger, flying from Brussels to New York and back in economy class generates in the order of 800 kg of CO2.

To mitigate the climate impacts of aviation, the EU has decided to impose a cap on CO2 emissions from flights operating to and from EU airports. From the start of 2012, some 4,000 aircraft operators arriving and departing in the EU will be covered by the EU ETS. Like industrial installations, airlines will receive tradable allowances covering a certain level of CO2 emissions from their flights per year. Aviation represents around 10% of greenhouse gas emissions covered by the EU ETS.

The inclusion of aviation in the EU ETS is expected to have only a minor impact on ticket prices. If an airline would charge customers for the full CO2 price, with the current carbon prices, the price of an economy class return ticket from Brussels to New York would rise by some twelve euro.

Transport & Environment disagree

T&E calculates that the cost to the aviation sector will be the equivalent of a one-cent per litre tax on aviation fuel which is currently untaxed in the EU.  The effect on ticket prices, if not inflated by airlines, should be less than 1 per cent on average.

This negligible impact on fuel costs is in stark contrast to rates of tax for road transport.  The average level of road fuel tax in the EU is around 48 cents per litre.  The EU also sets minimum levels for road fuel taxes, currently 36 cents per litre for petrol and 33 cents per litre for diesel.

T&E programme manager Bill Hemmings said: “Aviation, by far the most polluting transport sector, still operates in a European-wide fuel and VAT tax haven.  Inclusion of the sector in the EU-ETS is no more than a minor first step.  And it is no excuse for prolonging the massive subsidy of fuel tax and VAT exemptions.  In times of fiscal austerity these subsidies are more irresponsible than ever.”

Later this year, as foreseen in the EU ETS Directive, the Commission will formally determine the amounts of emission allowances to be auctioned, to be distributed free of charge to aircraft operators and to be allocated to a special reserve for new entrants. The EU ETS Directive states that Member States should use all auction revenues from aviation allowances to tackle climate change, including in the transport sector, and to adapt to the effects of climate change.

See MEMO/11/139 for more details.

Interview by Raul Cazan.

Three years ago I was obsessed with cutting carbon and carbon markets. The smartest and most inspirational people I was meeting at the time were blowing whistles at “pressure on ecosystems”. If in those times companies were getting shallowly into green business and coming forth with loads of disgusting greenwash, I was there wishing to pump out CO2. Nowadays, “pressure on ecosystems” with its corroborators, industrial agriculture, indirect land use change, the grave biofuel flop and other are the hype, hence not for large businesses or eco-chic puppets, in a full blown economic crisis. Jeremy Rifkin held a killer conference on his Third Industrial Revolution in Bucharest just before the European Climate Change Citizens’ Agora a couple of years ago. I had a nice conversation with him, me and my buddy, Mihai Stoica, about ’68, even got an autograph on my 68 Magnum Photoalbum.

Famous photoshot of Marc Riboud

Rifkin was leading at the time the March on the Pentagon and recognized Marc Riboud’s famous shot of a hippie ‘planting’ flowers on the National Guard soldiers’ rifles (see photo on the right). It was the cornerstone image of the peace movement at its peak in the hippie era of the 60s. But that was a private talk, let us stick to environmental issues. There are dimmer lights in which environmentalism is molding on development and Rifkin says it right.

Raul: Let’s talk about European reality and surpass a little the European Dream. I just came back from Brussels, there was the Green Week conference series and listened to a presentation held by Anders Wijkman. He is also approaching your holistic way of thinking, and, more importantly, he was also supported by Dimas. He mentioned the pressure on ecosystems and this would be more important than emissions and emissions trading. On the other hand Dimas (European Commissioner on Environment at the time) talked about sustainable consumption and production, which Europe kind of lacks now. It’s not such a rosy situation…

Jeremy Rifkin: It’s not, dreams is what you’d like to be, it’s what you want to be, but the good news is that at least if you begin thinking what you want to be, than you got to do it. It’s a gap between dreaming and making it happen.

R: What about the terms, how can we get there?

Jeremy Rifkin, director of the Institute for Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. Photo by Mihai Stoica

JR: I think that that’s why I was that tough about nuclear and coal because I think you got huge potential here, you got to move quickly with your renewables you got enough hydro here to do a lot, you got sun, wind, you got biomass and forestry waste, you got everything you need.
What Romania has to do is to get together the civil society and the business sector, the younger generation has to embrace the Third Revolution.
Romania has got 21 milion people, it’s a big elephant. Start moving the damn country.

R: Carbon trading, ETS. Linking ETS with the American trading scheme…

JR: let me say this about the carbon trading fact. I think that the carbon trading plan is part of the sollution, but if anyone thinks it’s the solution is kidding himself. It’s buying us time, it sets some standards. You know what the real value of carbon trading is? It’s a learning credit, what it actually allows people to do is understand that everytime I do something I affect the rainforest or other locations. I realise that what I do affects someone else. It’s actually a learning thing. People actually start to integrate into their mind that everything I do has an impact on everyone else. That’s actually the biggest benefit it has, to show that we are responsible for everyone else. In terms of the actual carbon trading it’s a small part of what we need to to, what we really need to do, we’ve got to get a tax on carbon, on feed grain, on meat production- The second major cause on global warming. No one talks about it, No 1 is buildings, No 3 is transportation, and No 2 is meat production. No one mentions that, no government leader.
39% of the grains in the world is feed grain for animals, a third of the land space and that’s a killer. We should talk about tax on feed grain, on meat production. So we are taxing cars and petrol, now we oughtta be taxing meat.

R: Green Hydrogen Initiative?

JR: It was set out when Romano Prodi was president, I set down with him and I said you have to make a hydrogen programme to store renewables. He put together two billion dollar programme wich is now moving to a joined technology initiative to the market, it will be 500 million Bruxelles and 7 billion private this year. The programme has a 26 technology platform of R&D engines for industry. I brought in business leaders in December to meet with president Barosso, and after that meeting I was encouraged by the commission to star having a conversation with the other platforms. What we did, we located 13 platforms of the 26 technology platforms that would lay the basis for a Third Industrial revolution, like road, rail, sustainable chemistry, computing, hydrogen, construction, etc. and we asked their chair persons would they join the technology working platform group and they all did. We had two long meetings and we are now creating a NASA airbus model with all these industry platforms that are now interfacing to create a world map. It’s very exciting.

R: GMO and biofuels?

JR: Big mistake. The opposition on GM food started in my office in 1982, we brought the first lawsuit that stopped the first release of a GMO in the environment. We’ve been fighting Monsanto for years. The GMO makes no sense. But there is a new generation of weed search called marker assisted selection, which I m in favour of. It’s a cutting edge of genomic revolution. What you don’t know is that the majority of companies like Monsanto do most of their research now on marker assisted selection. Why? Because GMO doesn’t work. It doesn’t give you much. Moreover, MAS shall not be patented, it’s gonna be like file sharing on the internet or local virtual networks.