BRUSSELS — The European Union’s executive will adopt
ambitious plans on Wednesday to make the 27-nation bloc a leader in the fight
against climate change, but tradeoffs will include higher energy bills.
The European Commission will detail proposals to cut
planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions by one-fifth and split among EU states a
target to produce one-fifth of all power from renewable sources like the wind
and sun by 2020.
The Commission wants to spur talks among industrialized
countries for a global climate deal by 2009 to help arrest global warming which
risks raising sea levels and causing more floods and droughts.
Brussels has had to fine-tune its plans to placate anxious
industry leaders, who fear higher energy costs will tilt competitiveness further
in favor of China and India, which have no emissions limits, at a time of record
oil prices.
"If we were to relocate our industries outside Europe we
would then have to transport steel to Europe, adding emissions," said Philippe
Varin, president of the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries, and
chief executive of Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus, owned by India’s Tata Steel.
The Commission’s plans will implement renewable energy and
emissions-cutting targets agreed by EU leaders last March, and require approval
by member states and the European Parliament.
Stiffest resistance will likely emerge over targets for each
country to cut greenhouse gases and install renewable energy.
Business, meanwhile, has sought to soften a planned overhaul
of the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme.
From 2013, power generators will have to buy all their
permits to emit carbon dioxide under the scheme, EU sources said. They will pass
the extra electricity costs on to consumers. Until now they got most permits for
free.
Power bills for industry and households will also rise as a
result of targets to supply more energy using clean energy technologies which
are more costly than fossil fuels.
Higher bills were an inevitable result of efforts to arrest
global warming, the Chief Executive of the British arm of the German utility
E.ON, Paul Golby, said on Tuesday.
"The time of a cheap energy world is over," he told Reuters.
The Commission’s measures will cost around half a percent of
the EU’s combined wealth a year, or about 60 billion euros ($86.99 billion),
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said this week. EU officials say they
will add about 10 percent to electricity prices.
Fine print in final drafts went to the wire late on Tuesday,
as EU officials faced a barrage of last minute lobbying from environmentalists,
governments and energy-intensive business.
Industrialists from the steel, cement, aluminum sectors
seemed to have won their case, and will get their fixed quota of emissions
permits for free from 2013, paying more over time.
Leaders of the steel sector were among the last to lobby Environment
Commissioner Stavros Dimas on Tuesday, warning they would be forced to shift
production outside Europe if emissions curbs and costs of auctioning emissions
permits put them at a competitive disadvantage against rivals in China or India.
