The theatrics of the Brexit crisis are making this week’s European Council summit in Brussels look like 27 against one.
But in other business, the European Union is often a story of 15 versus 13.
That is the Western countries who joined the union before 2004, and the Eastern countries who joined after.
Tomorrow, the 28 leaders of EU countries are set to adopt a new strategy on action to combat climate change.
In light of the student protests spreading across Europe and the world, many leaders in the West had wanted to strengthen the strategy. But this has been fiercely resisted by Eastern European countries led by Poland.
According to a leaked draft of the strategy, Poland is blocking an idea for the EU to commit to climate neutrality by 2050. It is being backed by its usual Eastern allies such as Hungary and the Czech Republic. But Warsaw has found a new ally against climate action which will likely see it win the battle tomorrow – Berlin.
Germany has broken ranks with other Western countries such as France, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands who support a call by the European Commission to meet the 2050 goal. The Commission put forward the plan last year.
The objecting countries, including Germany and Poland, are blocking any language in the strategy that would set a specific date for decarbonization.
Germany’s support or non-support for the 2050 plan will be decisive. It will be Angela Merkel who decides tomorrow whether the European Union heeds the calls of the young people marching on the streets of Brussels and Berlin, or whether it ignores them.
UPDATE: The EU has just released its summit statement which does not include any 2050 climate commitment or target in what is a big win for Eastern European governments and their new German ally:
CLIMATE CHANGE
The European Council:
– reiterates its commitment to the Paris Agreement and recognizes the need to step up the global efforts to tackle climate change in light of the latest available science, especially the IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels;
– emphasizes the importance of the EU submitting an ambitious long-term strategy by 2020 striving for climate neutrality in line with the Paris Agreement, while taking into account Member States’ specificities and the competitiveness of European industry;
– calls for the timely finalization of the national long-term strategies;
– recognizes that the implementation of the Paris Agreement objective offers significant opportunities and potential for economic growth, new jobs, and technological development and for strengthening European competitiveness, which must be reaped while ensuring a just and socially balanced transition for all;
– calls on the Council to intensify its work on a long-term climate strategy ahead of a further discussion in the European Council in June 2019
Read more at Forbes Blogs
They are waffling on decarbonization because it diminishes economic opportunities for all.
I’m first German American and even though I can’t speak German I have strong feelings for the well being of Germany. I thought allowing so many immigrants into Germany was a big mistake but you don’t seem to hear much about it anymore but that could be caused by making hate speech illegal. Now onto the subject, from where I sit you have a whole lot of misguided children most of which have not completed their education telling the adults what to do. That doesn’t seem right to me especially because the Climate Crisis is a hoax. After four severe winters in a row people are complaing about the heat. It is only a few short years before the world knows that the IPCC and UN have led them down the garden path. As the Eddy Grand Solar Minimum continues to cause havoc and the temperature continues to drop the people will know and people hate to be scammed. The consequences could be terminal or at least I hope it is. Did you know that back in 1998 the steady rise in temperature stopped and since then we’ve had a few hot months globally speaking for the most part the temperature has ceased to increase according to satellite data. The end of February was cooler than 1998 or when Gore accepted the peace prize. You really can’t have a global warming crisis when the temperature doesn’t rise. CO2 has continued to rise over these past 20 years, why hasn’t the temperature? It is simple. It is called the principal of self fulfilling prophecy. You are told by your bosses the earth is experiencing anthropogenic warming. Tell the world why the temperature has increase3d because of increase in CO2, so they did. I’m not a scientist but I have studied the subject and it obvious to me they didn’t account properly for the amount of influence the modern grand solar Maximum had on temperature rise and they gave that credit to CO2. What should be obvious – CO2 increase has not a substantial role in temperature rise. CO2 in the atmosphere according to plant growth is still only about one third it should be , but despite that scientists have observed global greening. The serious problem is how do we feed 7 billion people in a mini ice age?
You are right about the science, but need to remember that the climate change/global warming movement is a political movement, not a scientific one. It was started to achieve three goals, de-industrialization, increase the size of government and power, especially the UN, and as an excuse for new taxes. Since then other agenda have joined such as socialism and the effort to transfer the wealth of the industrial nations to the developing nations.
The children’s demonstrations all started at the same time all around the world. This clearly indicates central planning and CONTROL. One group of people have planned these world wide demonstrations. They probably timed it to influence the European Council summit in Brussels. The motivation of this group is probably one of the hidden agenda such as expanding the size and power of government or forced de-industrialization.
Climate change has the true science domain, and the political domain. In the political domain is junk science, the implementation of harmful policies such as renewable energy, and the push back on these policies. This article shows the beginning of a reversal on the political side. You can safely bet that Germany, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic will never to commit to a net zero carbon dioxide emissions. After this last election the Netherlands will probably never make such a commitment and after the next election the same will be true of France. Else where in the world Brazil and Australia have reversed their policies. This is the beginning of a trend.