Europe's climate change package - it ain't so bad after all
So it looks like Europe will get its climate change package after all.
According to various reports, heads of state will today agree a compromise deal, dispelling fears that intransigence from Poland and Hungary, and to a slightly lesser extent Germany and Italy, would scupper legislation that has been years in the making.
And yet even before the deal is finalised the chorus of disapproval from all sides has already begun.
Green groups have slammed proposals that would allow countries to meet large chunks of their emission reduction targets using carbon credits bought in from overseas, while the industrial lobby will undoubtedly claim that they deserved still more free pollution permits under the emissions trading scheme.
Friends of the Earth's climate campaigner, Robin Webster, led the catcalls, claiming that "huge loopholes" would allow big energy-users "to carry on polluting and nations to buy offset 'credits' from abroad".
The concerns over imported credits are undoubtedly valid, particularly given the mechanism for buying these credits, the UN's CDM, is itself still struggling to iron out some pretty fundamental flaws. Moreover, the whole package is likely to be dogged by similarly unsatisfactory compromises with many of the original proposals - such as the fines for car firms that fail to meet new emission standards - having already been watered down.
But politics is about nothing if compromise and there is a strong case for the green movement to focus on what is in the final package as opposed to what has been removed.
It is easy to forget when looking at the minutiae of the proposals exactly how historic they are.
The binding targets to cut greenhouse emissions by 20 per cent, generate 20 per cent of energy from renewable sources, and deliver a 20 per cent improvement in energy efficiency have been retained and will drive massive changes in the way Europe operates over the next 12 years. They really will provide the foundations on which the low carbon economy can be built.
New car emission standards, for example, mean that in five years time many of the vehicles on the road will have to be far greener than they are today, while the way we generate energy and use much of our energy is likely to change beyond recognition over the next 12 years.
Across the entire green business movement concrete certainty that there will be demand from government for low carbon products and services will allow clean tech firms to invest with more confidence than ever before. Wind turbine and solar manufacturers can continue to scale up production capacity, smart grid innovators can accelerate development plans, electric car firms can press ahead with new models, and green consultancies can start hiring, all relatively safe in the knowledge that demand for their products will strengthen.
There have also been some improvements to the package resulting from the lengthy negotiations.
The electric car sector has received an unexpected boost from its inclusion in the targets for renewable fuel use, and the proposed "solidarity fund" that has been designed to help poorer eastern European states build low carbon infrastructure is entirely right and proper.
Even where it looks like the proposals have been watered down it can be argued that the deal is not as bad as it first seems.
Allowing governments to buy in billions of euros worth of carbon credits from overseas should not become an excuse for inaction at home, but the model, flawed as it is in practice, does help accelerate the transfer of low carbon technology to the developing world.
Equally, the likelihood that more industries than originally expected will receive free pollution permits under the EU's emissions trading scheme will weaken the carbon market and deliver huge windfalls to some pretty undeserving industries. But the emission caps imposed under the scheme will still be much lower in the next phase than they are at the moment and the fears that some sectors would simply decamp to China, where they would carry on polluting at will, were genuine and had to be addressed.
But most of all, detractors should remember that any deal would have been worthless if it did not include the whole bloc.
As the UK's increasingly assured climate change secretary Ed Miliband has been keen to explain of late the low carbon revolution cannot happen unless you bring everyone with you.
Concessions simply had to be made to get everyone on board.
Deep down those politicians who believe the scientists warnings know the 20 per cent target does not go far enough, just as they know that some of the compromises agreed over the past two days are unsatisfactory. But they are equally aware that they will never get anywhere if they set targets so ambitious that some countries and businesses immediately dismiss them as impossible to achieve.
What they have delivered is a set of goals defined not just by the art of compromise but also the art of the possible - and for that this agreement should be welcomed.
Courtesy businessgreen.com
