Has the recession made EU emission targets possible?

Can we keep them low?

The global recession; it devastated companies' profit margins, it saw millions made redundant, but it also saw carbon emissions drop by 11 percent in a single year.

Like it or not, the economic downturn may have been a bane to industries worldwide, but it was a boon to the environment. As companies tightened their belts and made cuts where they could, demand for energy fell... as did production levels. As such, throughout the EU emissions dropped. Sure, industry suffered as a result, but as countries around the world begin to climb out of the recession there are lessons to be learnt and a good baseline from which to work on cutting emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

As the EU climate policy is guided by the Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), emission levels in the EU have been pre-determined with fixed numbers of emissions allowances being created and handed out to industry. Unfortunately, the recession has not been taken into account and due to falling emission levels, many companies now have a massive surplus of emissions they'd be able to emit. While the caps were created to incentivize cutting emissions, a boom in production could see a massive surge of CO2 being put into the atmosphere.

Alternatively, these surpluses could be sold for large amounts of money.

Making a bold start...

With emission caps for the period 2012-2020 to be decided in June of this year, many companies are amassing large surpluses and are lobbying to hold targets where they are. Of course, the recession has 're-set' the entire world in terms of production, so for the EU to increase emission allowances would be foolhardy. Keeping them as they are would increase ambition without unduly damaging competitiveness on the continent.

This would ensure any growth would be 'greener' as well as help the EU meet its 2020 target. It's happened before after all; in 1990, the continent saw a massive cut in emissions as the Soviet Union collapsed, and with it several countries economies.

If we start as we mean to go on, achieving the 2020 target should be do-able, especially with other innovations such as linking EU power grids and increased utilisation of renewable energies.

Relevant articles:

Roadmap 2050: Linking EU power grids | Desertec: Powering Europe from the Sahara | EU C02 emissions dropped by 11% in 2009

Timon Singh

Timon Singh is a graduate of Liverpool University where he received a degree in Social and Economic History. He has previously worked for BBC Magazines on BBC Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine, the publication for the popular genealogy show.

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