Spain Looks Overseas to Meet Costly Kyoto Goals
Date: 13-Jul-06
Country: SPAIN
Author: Jane Barrett
The environment ministry said on Wednesday it would cut 16 percent off industry's greenhouse gas emissions quotas from 2008-12 in the second phase of the European Union's carbon trading scheme.
Spain, one of Kyoto's worst performers, reckons it will still be well over the limits it agreed under the protocol so will buy extra pollution cuts from developing and former communist countries.
"The new plan will allow our industries to stay competitive, protect economic growth and jobs ... while meeting our committments in the Kyoto protocol," Joan Trullen, secretary general for industry, said in a presentation.
Spain will exploit Kyoto's so-called flexibility mechanisms, which allow countries to buy pollution cuts -- or carbon credits -- from overseas, and so avoid cutting their own pollution or buying potentially more costly credits on the EU scheme.
Under the Kyoto protocol, Spain can emit up to 15 percent more greenhouses gases by 2008-12 than it did in 1990.
However, in 2004 it pumped out 48 percent more than in 1990 and the overshoot swelled to 53 percent in 2005, according to trade union CCOO and environmental group Worldwatch.
The EU, which as a whole must cut its pollution record, can reject Spain's plans if it deems them too soft on industry.
TARGET
Spain will cut its industry emissions quotas to 152.7 million tonnes a year for 2008-12, compared to 182.2 million tonnes under the first phase of the scheme from 2005-07.
The plan will hit energy producers the hardest, requiring them to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 36 percent.
Trullen said those companies also had incentives to push forward in renewable energy and natural gas so should naturally be polluting less in the next few years.
Other industries like cement, steel, ceramics and paper, which had worried that they would have to pay the price of Spain's environmental push, will be allowed to emit slightly more than in previous years.
Spanish industry included in the EU trading scheme can also buy up to 26 million tonnes CO2 per year of Kyoto carbon credits from 2008-12, 17 percent of their total proposed quota.
That compares to 8 percent that Britain has said it will allow, potentially implying a greater cost for British industry to comply with the EU scheme.
The lion's share of Spain's greenhouse gases are emitted by housing and transport. Spain would buy up to 31.8 million tonnes of Kyoto credits per year to cover these emissions, it said.
The credits would close a gap on the Kyoto target of up to 289 million tonnes from 2008-12, in deals worth up to 3 billion euros (US$3.82 billion).