EU CALLS FOR "GLOBAL CARBON MARKET" AFTER 2012

With only one month to go before the COP-11 meeting in Montreal, EU environment ministers have been trying to boost the EU's chances of bringing more countries into global talks to take action on global warming.

With the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol closing in 2012, the EU has launched discussions on its future long-term strategy to fight global warming. The biggest challenge of the Commission's proposed strategy for the EU is to bring all major world emitters of global-warming gases - including the US and emerging economies such as China - into a binding pollution-cutting scheme.

EU environment ministers on Monday (17 October) repeated their commitment to existing policies to reduce global warming but fell short of defining a precise path for action after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol draws to an end.

At the COP-11 meeting in Montreal next month, the EU will boast achievements such as the launch of the Europe-wide CO2 Emissions Trading Scheme in January this year. It will recommend that other nations join and build "a global carbon market" that would exploit the full potential of existing technologies and explore new ones.

"A global future climate change strategy should drive technology innovation, employing an optimal mix of 'push' and 'pull' policies," said the ministers. 'Pull' policies include carbon trading where the EU is at a more advanced stage than other countries or regions. But the US has a huge advantage when in comes to 'push' policies such as ambitious technology R&D programmes and their financing.