Europe’s Commissioner for the Environment, Stavros Dimos claims that tackling climate change is now one of the “highest priorities” of the European Union.
Writing in the Financial Times, he says that “the centrepiece of our response has been the development of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and the European carbon market.”
The ETS, claims Dimos, will remain at the heart of Europe’s strategy for cutting greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2012 and could be the mechanism to get the US engaged on climate again.
Dimos argues that “By demonstrating that emissions trading can work between 25 states, the EU has provided a model on which a future global climate policy can be based. It was the US that invented emissions trading and a successful ETS will be the strongest argument to re-engage the US in an international response to climate change”.
Personally, I think the best instrument for re engaging the US would be to get rid of President Bush