EU leaders felt confident that they had put forward ‘a very strong mandate’ to feed into the Copenhagen climate change conference this week, when they reached their conclusions at the end of last week (11 December). This view was not shared by environmental groups, who roundly criticised the outcomes, claiming a great opportunity to be more ambitious had been missed, with the EU struggling to live up to its claims to be a leader on climate action.

Agreement was reached on fast-track financing of developing countries during the summit, covering the period between 2010-2012, with the EU agreeing to contribute €2.4 billion per year to developing countries to tackle global warming. Leaders did not however decide to make the 30% emission reduction target by 2020 a legally binding one, meaning that settling on this more ambitious figure will remain dependent on other industrialised countries making comparable commitments.

The €2.4 billion offer represents the first firm commitment on financing by the EU, and appears to acknowledge that the EU’s share should amount to approximately a third of the global contribution. However, questions have been raised as to the source of the money. Critics are saying that the money is simply a re-allocation of development aid which has already been committed, and as such does not represent any additional funding to developing countries. ActionAid EU expert Anne-Catherine Claude summarised these concerns saying "Many EU members have a track record of repackaging or re-announcing existing aid commitments. This appears to be the case here too. Real leadership on climate change requires real money and the EU is clearly failing here”.

The EU’s decision to reiterate its conditional commitment to move to a 30% emission reduction target by 2020, was also met with disapproval, with WWF, Friends of the Earth Europe and Greens / EFA President Rebecca Harms amongst those condemning the EU’s failure to make a bolder commitment. Jason Anderson, the head of EU climate and energy policy at WWF’s European Policy Office encapsulated this frustration, saying that ‘The European Council has missed a great opportunity to move forward on emissions reductions targets, and to inspire real progress in the final, crucial week of negotiations in Copenhagen. This is extremely disappointing.’

The Council’s decision has arrived in the week that 136 national and European members of GLOBE Europe and EU signed a letter addressed to Heads of State and Government, calling on the EU to making the 30% target legally binding (for link to article, click here).

Nevertheless, the Prime Minister of Sweden, who hold the rotating EU Presidency till the end of the month, Frederik Reinfeldt announced he was ‘particularly satisfied’, praising a ‘very strong mandate for Copenhagen […] It's a firm commitment to play a leading role when it comes to climate issues in the coming week’. With so much criticism of what are not seen as particularly ambitious conclusions, it is not clear if this optimism is deserved. EU leaders will however have one more chance, albeit in an informal meeting during the Copenhagen conference, to consolidate the EU position, and otherwise it is now up to negotiators at the UN summit to hammer out the details of the deal.