European Failure on Carbon May Cripple Economy, Climate Strategies Says

Bloomberg - article online
Friday 9 March 2012

The EU said it may cut greenhouse gases 25 percent by 2020 compared with 1990, if it steps up energy-saving measures, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, said in a policypaper published today in Strasbourg, France. The document maps a path for an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases in 2050.

“They are right to be calling for deeper emissions cuts sooner rather than later,” Emmanuel Guerin, project leader from Climate Strategies, a Cambridge-based research group, said in an e-mailed statement. “It would be deeply unfair to pass the buck onto future generations, who by mid century will find reductions a cripplingly expensive task.”

Europe’s economy will shrink in the decade starting in 2040 “as money is poured into meeting 2050 targets,” Guerin said.

The European Union will face a “cripplingly expensive” tab by 2040 unless it acts now to tighten its emission-reduction targets, according to a researcher at Climate Strategies.