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 The European Union will propose an expenditure of up to 15 billion Euros ($21.8 billion) a year in aid to developing countries to persuade them to sign a new global climate change agreement, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (whose country holds the rotating EU presidency) announced on September 9.
"The [European] Commission has presented 15 billion (euros) as the European part of the global response," said Reinfeldt, noting that the proposal still "has to be discussed with all the EU member states. It's a starting point of discussion."
Reinfeldt noted that the burden of the contributions would be shared among EU members based on gross domestic product "and other factors like emission levels."
AFP reported that Reinfeldt said: "What we have now is not enough," calling for President Barack Obama to increase the U.S. contribution and also welcoming a proposal from Japan's new ruling Democrat Party of Japan to come up with a quarter of the amount. AFP also cited a diplomatic source who revealed that the EU wants to see the equivalent of 12 billion euros (17.5 billion dollars) per year coming from the United States.
The EU plan, if agreed to by all 27 EU nations, projects that developing countries will face annual costs of some billion Euros ($146 billion) a year by 2020 if they are to meet so-called climate change commitments.
BBC cited UN estimates that poor nations will need about $100 billion per year for climate adaptation, with much of that coming from levies on carbon trading (often referred to as "cap and trade"). The EU anticipates that about 40 percent of the $100 billion will be coming from the global carbon market that is supposed to emerge from the treaty that is expected to be signed at December's UN summit in Copenhagen. The commission issued a statement that "industrialized nations and economically more advanced developing countries" will have to provide $22-50 billion per year.
The proposal would also expand cap-and-trade regulations to go beyond land-based emissions producers to include international aviation and maritime transport companies.
The proposal will now be considered by the European Council and European Parliament.
An AP report quoted EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, who said the promised funding was Europe's "first meaningful proposal" to urge faster progress toward a new United Nations global climate pact at Copenhagen in December.
The report noted that the European Union is seeking a deal that will limit the increase in global warming by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). It is promising to reduce its so-called greenhouse gas emissions to one fifth below 1990 levels by 2020 — and says it will increase that reduction to 30 percent if other nations branded as "major polluters" do the same.
This week, Japan pledged to cut emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels. The United States is considering a more modest reduction of 17 percent from 2005 levels or about 3.5 percent from 1990.
A Wall Street Journal report noted that the EU seeks to lead negotiations at the Copenhagen summit to reach an international agreement that would be the successor of the Kyoto protocol, negotiated more than a decade ago.
The commission's September 10 statement is regarded as crucial for Copenhagen because it will form the basis of the EU position at the talks, after it is analyzed by the 27 member countries and the European Parliament.
A Bloomberg News report quoted United Nations Climate Chief Yvo de Boer's statement that China, Japan, and the EU are taking steps that increase the prospects for a new global accord to reduce carbon emissions to be agreed to at Copenhagen.
"I have the sense that the international community is gearing up to get the job done in Copenhagen," de Boer said in an interview in Dalian, China, where he is attending a World Economic Forum meeting.
"It would make it clear to the international community that both China and the United States want to reach a serious and ambitious agreement in Copenhagen," de Boer added.
Though most EU and other governmental officials cited in reports about climate change assume that any variation in average global temperatures is anthropogenic (i.e., caused by humans), a large group of respected scientists and climate experts insist that so-called global warming — if it exists at all — may be a natural phenomenon that threatens neither the Earth nor the creatures (including humans) that inhabit it.
For that matter, an increase in global temperatures, from any causes, is uncertain. A report compiled by Roy Spencer, Ph.D., a climatologist and former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center states that data that he and colleague John Christy compiled from the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A) flying on NASA's Aqua satellite indicates that average global temperatures have actually declined in recent years.
As award-winning NASA astronaut/geologist and moonwalker Jack Schmitt, who flew on the Apollo 17 mission and was formerly a member of the Norwegian Geological Survey and the U.S. Geological Survey has stated:
"The 'global warming scare' is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making."
Considering the EU's push to redistribute the world's wealth from its productive to the non-productive sectors, Schmidt's statement should be amended to include control over all human's lives, not just Americans.
Warren Mass is editor of the Bulletin of The John Birch Society.
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