EU baits the Copenhagen hook (News Feature)

By Ben Nimmo Oct 30, 2009, 16:48 GMT

Brussels - The European Union has baited its hook.

On Friday, for the first time, the leaders of the world's biggest economic bloc agreed a figure on how much money the developed world should offer developing states to fight climate change.

By putting a number on the cost of fighting global warming, the EU is trying to tempt poor countries into cutting their greenhouse-gas emissions, and to shame rich states into making their own promises.

'The EU has a very strong negotiating position .... Our position encourages others to deliver,' Swedish premier Fredrik Reinfeldt said at a summit with EU counterparts in Brussels, just 38 days before crucial United Nations talks begin in Copenhagen.

Reinfeldt brokered the deal as the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency. On Tuesday, he is set to present it to US President Barack Obama in Washington.

The pressure at the EU summit was intense, with high-profile figures from around the world urging the bloc to offer developing states a concrete sum of money for the first time.

The EU must do so 'because financing ... is one of the keys for a new deal. Without reliable pledges, developing states will not move,' UN chief climate negotiator Yvo de Boer said.

South Africa's Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu in an open letter accused the bloc of being 'paralysed by the unseemly bickering amongst its member states over who will pay the bill.'

In the event, EU leaders endorsed a proposal from the European Commission, the EU's executive, that rich countries should offer poor ones about 100 billion euros (147 billion dollars) per year in funding to help fight climate change.

Their joint statement also repeated the commission's estimate that Western governments would pay up to half that sum, and 'took note' of its proposal that developed states should offer 5-7 billion euros per year in climate aid over the next three years.

But all three figures were 'conditional on other key players making comparable efforts' and 'subject to a fair burden-sharing at the global level,' the statement said.

That drew the fire of environmental groups, who said that leaders had missed the chance to come up with a credible offer.

'The EU failed to use this opportunity to put its money where its mouth is,' Greenpeace climate policy director Joris den Blanken said.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom diplomats identified as the biggest opponent of the deal, warned that 'by defining what we need in order to call (Copenhagen) a success, we are running a risk, because we are no longer leaving all possible outcomes open.'

But both comments miss the EU's point. In the countdown to Copenhagen, the bloc is desperate to make its voice heard, rather than letting the United States and China dictate the outcome.

The EU needs 'a financial strategy so that we can engage in discussions' with other world powers, said Reinfeldt.

Since the EU has already pledged to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions regardless of any Copenhagen deal, money is the biggest incentive it can offer to other states to cut theirs.

'No money, no deal - but no action (from developing states), no money,' is the commission's mantra on the subject.

And in the next three weeks, Reinfeldt and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso are set to hold face-to-face talks with the leaders of the US, India and Russia, while EU negotiators meet the world in climate talks in Barcelona.

At all those events, EU representatives will now be able to challenge other developed states to make their own offers, and urge developing states to promise emissions cuts.

'We can look others in the eye and say, 'We Europeans have done our job.' ... We can take this message to Washington, New Delhi, Beijing and elsewhere,' Barroso said.

And in that sense, diplomats say the question of whether the EU made a firm commitment on the numbers is less important than the fact that it mentioned them - and that it can now press other states to react.

'The offer is conditional on what others do. This is a show of good intentions,' Reinfeldt stressed.

The EU has baited its hook. The next six weeks will determine whether it gets a bite.