The EU added a bunch of Eastern European member states in 2004. However, they were on a path to membership from the early to mid-1990s on, at least a few years before Kyoto came into effect. What was the influence of these states on European international climate policy?
The states themselves tend to be heavier fossil fuel users than the Western European states, which at first glance suggests they would be an influence away from emissions mitigation agreements.
On the other hand, Soviet-legacy energy systems are rife with potential low-hanging fruit in terms of improvements, if you have someone to provide the funding for them. And Kyoto allows for joint implementation, in which countries cooperate to meet their pooled targets collectively, with the actual location of cuts being wherever the cooperating countries find it easiest to make them. So has the actual effect of the Eastern European countries been to be an insurance policy for West European target-setting, making them more comfortable pushing for and signing on to Kyoto's targets? (Easiest piece of evidence to look for: has the EU collectively tended to pursue its targets via JI that locates a lot of emissions cutting in Eastern Europe? Current answer: no idea.)
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