Riccardo Brizzi - 02/04/2012

     From 26-29 March the futuristic Eastside ‘London International Convention Centre’ was the venue for an ambitious conference on climate change, entitled Planet Under Pressure. New Knowledge Towards Solutions, the organizers being the International Council for Science which is perhaps the world’s number one scientific organization. Nearly 3000 scientists, politicians, industrialists and journalists attended this maxi-gathering of climate change experts to get ready for the major UN conference on sustainable development to be held on 20-22 June 2012 at Rio de Janeiro (its title Rio+20 refers to the 20 years elapsed since the first Earth Summit in 1992).
     Many studies were presented, basically in agreement that climate change is producing an alarming increase in violent weather episodes: in 2011 alone – noted Lidia Brito, co-chair of the conference – 950 “natural catastrophes” were recorded, nearly all traceable to climate change. That is 50% more than the yearly mean over the last three decades. Special interest was aroused by a survey carried out by two scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Dim Coumou and Stefan Rahmstorf. Their recent article – A Decade of Weather Extremes, published in the journal Nature Climate Change – analyses the increase in “exceptional” climatic events recorded over the last decade: the unprecedented heat-wave over Europe in summer 2003, the dramatic flooding in Pakistan in 2010, the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Great Britain (2007) and Australia (2010), and the tragic tsunami in the Indian Ocean (2004) which devastated the coasts of south-east Asia and cost 230,000 lives. Europe’s sensitivity to the environment emergency is confirmed by the latest Eurobarometer published in March.
     Those interviewed were asked to grade from 1 to 10 the seven EU initiatives for its Europe 2020 strategy (social help for the indigent, modernising the job market, support for the “green economy, improving the quality of higher education, support for industrial competitiveness, incentives to research, and developing the Internet). Though there were wide differences from country to country (92% and 86% in Sweden and Germany, down to 69% and 64% in Italy and the UK) around 75% of the sample deemed it “important” (i.e. worth grade 7) to “support an economy using fewer natural resources and emitting less greenhouse gas”. And yet, for all this widespread awareness, ecologically-minded Europe is finding it increasingly difficult to set down an agenda for the war on global warming. 
     This is not just a clash with the main international partners (see the carbon tax issue whereby air companies are compelled to buy 15% of the pollutant emissions their aircraft produce over European airspace, to a chorus of protest from China, India and the USA); it also regards coordination among the 27 member countries themselves. The EU has committed to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% (on 1990 levels) by 2020. According to the draft project presented by the Danish commissioner for Action on Climate, Connie Hedegaard, that target ought to be raised to 40% by 2030, 60% by 2040 and as much as 80% by 2050. But last March 9th in Brussels, though confirming her commitment to the 2020 target, Poland refused unyieldingly to underwrite the new draft, which the other 26 partners did approve (albeit with some initial resistance from Prague and Budapest).
     Poland’s recalcitrance is about having to convert her energy habits when her needs are almost entirely (93%) met by coal, pollutant though it be. Only three months before on the eve of the 8-9 December European Council, British premier Cameron and Poland’s Tusk complained of the community spirit being betrayed and a two-speed Europe being created (“One Europe, two Unions” was the Gazeta Wyborcza headline). A few days later London refused to sign the Fiscal Compact designed to step up economic integration in the EU. Three months later we find Warsaw standing out on the climate issue. Though much might be said as to the European sympathies of these two governments, it remains a fact that as the fate of the European project hangs in the balance, the 27 are showing alarming division (even when poised to attend a summit like Rio) over one of the few issues – the ecology and combating global warming – where traditionally we have been compactly ahead of the rest of the world.

Riccardo Brizzi
(University of Bologna)