It is necessary for the rich nations to make pledges on cutting carbon emissions first before the big developing polluters will step in and make their contribution. China and India argue that "Developed countries should be responsible for their accumulative emissions and current high per-capita emissions, and take the lead in reducing emissions, in addition to providing financial support and transferring technologies to developing countries"^[1] therefore it needs to be the EU, USA and Japan who created the problem act first on the problem, this target helps prove that the EU is willing to act.

1. ^ Craig Simmons, U.S., China face tough choices on Climate Change, March 22nd 2009, http://www.focusthenation.org/news/us-china-face-tough-choices-climate-change

Developing nations will not be persuaded by these targets as they want us to implement much more immediate targets. Nations like china are also much more interested in action than words, they want technology transfer of green technologies to reduce their own climate emissions. The other thing that developing nations want is funding to help build green energy generation, unlike the already developed nations these countries have the opportunity to build their electrical generation from the bottom up as a green industry, but obviously this will be costly.

On 10 January 2007 the Commission adopted an energy and climate change package that included a reduction of at least 20% in the emission of greenhouse gases by 2020 compared to 1990 levels and the objective of a 30% reduction by 2020. The hope is that this 30% target will become mandatory later this year. This was to be done through improving emissions trading, increasing the amount of renewable energy generation and the amount of biofuels.^[1] However a longer term 2050 goal needs to be created both as a target to be moving towards after 2020 and because all agreements on climate change and carbon emissions take a long time. With the EU beginning to think about 80-95% cuts in carbon emissions now then they will have agreements on how to meet those targets by the time the short term targets have passed. Talking about such large cuts now means that while they might appear unfeasible now they will seem much more possible in the years to come, they will slowly become accepted.

1. ^ Boosting growth and jobs by meeting our climate change commitments, 23 January 2008, Brussels, http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/80

It is the short term goals that are the ones that matter, if we fail to meet the 20-30% cut in carbon emissions by 2020 then it becomes much more difficult to reach targets of 80% by 2050. Any target that is so far off is going to be merely aspirational as we do not know what extra emissions might occur in the mean time, such as the permafrost melting, or the arrival of new technologies.

MEP John Bowis argues "We need to make it clear to all countries that reducing emissions can be good for growing an economy and turning it green. However this will only work if we provide incentives for our businesses to invest in green technologies and practices."^[1] Green groups believe we need a radical change to make this happen, an ambitious target may be just what is needed to build “a completely new industrial policy to make this happen, supporting the engineers and business leaders who can make the target a reality. Just as important is a step change in government thinking, where for too long civil servants at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform have treated the renewables industry with utter contempt." At the moment "although the UK has one of the biggest renewable energy potentials in the EU, we lag behind most of our European neighbours in developing green power. The government must revolutionise its support for renewables."^[2]

1. ^ Martha Moss, Recession ‘could be EU’s opportunity’ to develop green industry, 4th Feb., 2009, http://www.theparliament.com/latestnews/news-article/newsarticle/recession-could-be-eus-opportunity-to-develop-new-green-industries/
2. ^ Jessica Aldred, EU sets 20% target for carbon cuts, The Guardian, 23rd January 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/23/climatechange.eu1

"Responding to the challenge of climate change is the ultimate political test for our generation. Our mission, indeed our duty, is to provide the right policy framework for transformation to an environment friendly European economy and to continue to lead the international action to protect our planet.” .^[1] Radical steps are necessary because "climate change is both more rapid and more serious in terms of its adverse affects than was previously thought".

1. ^ Boosting growth and jobs by meeting our climate change commitments, 23 January 2008, Brussels, http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/80

Climate change theory is still disputed with scientists ready to place money on the line to prove that it is wrong and the earth's temperature will decrease rather than increase over the next decade. If the earth's temperature decreases then decades from now our grandchildren will be scratching our heads and wondering what the fuss was all about?^[1]

1. ^ Adam, David "Climate change skeptics bet $10,000 on cooler world. Russian pair challenge UK expert over global warming Guardian online Written Friday 19th of August 2005 Accessed 11.05.2008 http://debatewise.com/debates/832-eu-member-states-must-reduce-their-carbon-emissions-by-at-least-80-by-2050/points/4047/edit?type=against

The financial crisis obviously makes change more difficult but such crises can lead to change themselves, Karl Heinz Florenz points out that "Sometimes a defeat or a crisis gives you new opportunity to make changes and develop new industries... This is an opportunity not just a crisis."^[1] The financial crisis shows that where there is a will governments can throw vast amounts of money at problems and move to get things done. The damage caused by global warming will far outweigh that caused by the financial crisis so the response should be at least as big.

1. ^ Martha Moss, Recession ‘could be EU’s opportunity’ to develop green industry, 4th Feb., 2009, http://www.theparliament.com/latestnews/news-article/newsarticle/recession-could-be-eus-opportunity-to-develop-new-green-industries/

The economy should come first while the world is caught in the recession, this is no time to be worrying about a crisis that is decades away and may never happen. The recession means that the cap and trade system does not work. As output falls so too does the emissions while the regulatory regime is not flexible enough to catch up. Cash-strapped firms sell their permits to raise funds. So prices on Europe's carbon exchanges plummet, hitting a low of 8.05 euro per metric ton in February 2009, a drop of nearly 75 percent from the level of 31 euro last July, when demand and prices for coal, oil and natural gas were are record levels. Research group Point Carbon said recently it expected the value of the global carbon market to drop 32 percent this year to 63 billion euro from 92 billion euro in 2008. At the moment this means that it is very cheap to continue polluting.^[1] Since this is the main mechanism the EU has for reducing carbon emissions any raised target is at the moment too optimistic.

1. ^ Michael Richardson, Carbon Slump threatens emissions cut goals, The Japan Times, 7th April 2009, http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090407mr.html

The costs of inaction are much highter, up to 20% of GDP. This alone is a reason to implement the targets. These costs are simply in financial terms and does not include other factors such as the loss of lives and livelihoods.

Meeting all these targets is very costly to UK business. To meet the earlier targets of 20% cuts in emissions by 2020 was going to cost up to £6billion a year. José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, put the cost of those proposals across all member states would be €60 billion (£44 billion) a year, or 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product.^[1] These targets even then were extremely challenging so this more ambitious target will be even more costly and difficult to implement. It means having to pay for more costly power supplies from renewable energy as well as costs on business of cap and trade.

1. ^ Robin Pagnamenta and David Charter, Tough European targets on cutting emissions to cost Britain £6billion a year, Times Online, 23rd January 2008, http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article3234711.ece

This argument leads to the simple question if we don't start who starts?. If no one takes the lead on cutting emissions then. We may not be the biggest polluters but we're still part of the problem. Furthermore the US and China won't make massive cuts unless they see clear benefits in making cuts. If the EU starts reducing CO2 and generates benefits from cuts in CO2 emissions such as (possible new jobs generated and technology) then this might sway more entrenched forces within both countries.

It is generally the US that is seen as being the nation that needs to take action on climate change not the EU. The US has done nothing for almost a decade and is now behind. The more the US can do, the more other nations can do as well as Europe does not want to impose costs on its business that will make it less competitive while the US does not do the same. This is also true for China. China is now seen as a key trendsetting leader, not only in East Asia but also globally, other developing nations will take action if China does, and China taking action will shame developed countries into action. Multilateral coordination on climate will be rendered ineffective without meaningful action from both nations.^[1]

1. ^ Catherine Fitzpatrick, U.S., China should match climate talk with action, China Daily, 27th April 2009, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bw/2009-04/27/content_7717792.htm

Some environmentalists such as Bjorn Lomborg author of the Sceptical Environmentalist argue that we would be better focusing ohttp://debatewise.com/debates/832-eu-member-states-must-reduce-their-carbon-emissions-by-at-least-80-by-2050/points/new?type=againstn ways we would be able to live in a changed climate as there is very little we can do to prevent climate change. For example doing things first like making sure we have a clean supply of water would save millions of lives now rather than paying later for money spent on projects that may or may not work and not save any or as many lives as they were predicted to do.^[1]

1. ^ Cool it Bjorn Lomborg http://www.lomborg.com/cool_it/?PHPSESSID=ec81b50ca4e47a5f84b3109c3b36bfc4 Accessed 11.05.2009