The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on Monday called on new European Union (EU) member states to reach out for the benefits of low-carbon economy and approve the EU's ambitious climate change policies.
The WWF, the global conservation organization, made the appeal through its Brussels-based European Policy Office ahead of a summit meeting of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and French President Nicolas Sarkozy with leaders of Central and Eastern European states in Gdansk, Poland, on Saturday.
The summit with Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia aims to achieve key compromises on the EU's climate change and energy package ahead of an EU summit on Dec. 11-12.
Tusk and Sarkozy are in their capacities as hosts to a UN climate change conference in Poznan, Poland, and the EU summit in Brussels respectively.
"There is a unique opportunity for Eastern European countries to decide if they want to belong to the group of leaders moving to a low-carbon economy, or to the countries lagging behind with economies stuck in the past," said WWF senior advisor Delia Villagrasa.
Poland was singled out for particular attention and encouraged to propose a position consistent with its presidency role in Poznan. So far, the Polish government has claimed that the EU climate package will harm its economy.
"The host of the UN conference has the obligation to propose measures that will deliver us a safer climate future," said Villagrasa.
Central and Eastern European countries have an enormous opportunity to cut greenhouse gas emissions through untapped potential for energy efficiency and use of renewable energy, said the WWF.
Committing to the EU climate change package now will increase industrial competitiveness, reduce dependency on foreign energy supplies, reduce household energy bills and boost sustainable economic development with jobs in new cleaner sectors, it argued.
Many Eastern European nations have elevated emissions levels. Bulgaria and Romania have carbon dioxide intensity per GDP unit 10times higher than the EU average; Czech and Estonian per capita emissions are higher than the majority of other EU countries; Lithuania displayed the second highest increase of emissions in the power sector between 2000-2006, noted the WWF.
Hungary should stop plans to fund new inefficient coal power plants with unabated emissions, it said.
The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, proposed a package of measures in January 2008 to implement a decision of EU leaders last year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent in 2020 on 1990 levels.
The leaders also agreed to have 20 percent of renewables in EU's energy mix and to increase energy efficiency by 20 percent by 2020.
The package of measures will be a key element of discussions at the upcoming EU summit.
Source:Xinhua
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