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Europe's Renewables Lead Stirs US Concern-Germany |
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| GERMANY: March 19, 2008 | ||
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BERLIN - The United States' resistance to international efforts to fight climate change is linked to Europe's growing competitive advantage in the renewable energies sector, Germany's deputy environment minister said on Monday.
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Michael Mueller said he believed that economic interests were playing an increasingly important role in international negotiations aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouses gases. Germany is a world leader in renewables technology. "In the United States there is a growing recognition that Europe's lead in renewable energies technology is a problem," Mueller told a conference in Berlin, where substantial government backing has led to flourishing renewable sectors. "I think the United States' blockade can be traced to the fact that the Americans are not as far along in this area as they should be," he added. "There's an economic interest behind their blockade." The United States is the only developed nation outside the UN's Kyoto Protocol after Australia's new Labour government signed up in December. US President George W. Bush said Kyoto's caps on emissions of greenhouse gases would cost jobs. About 190 nations including the United States agreed at UN talks in Bali, Indonesia, in December last year to launch two years of negotiations on a new climate treaty to widen Kyoto with commitments from all nations, including developing countries such as China and India. In 2007, the International Energy Agency said the European Union generated 10 percent of all electricity from renewables such as hydro, biomass and waste and other renewables in 2005. That was twice as much as the 5 percent for electricity in the United States. Mueller said Germany got a record 18 percent of its electricity in February from renewable energy sources, up from 14 percent in 2007 due to winds from winter storms. Germany had 6.2 percent of its electricity from renewables in 2000. "No other programme to fight climate change has been as successful as the expansion of renewable energies," he said.
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Story by Erik Kirschbaum
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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