Poland Joins East EU States Seeking CO2 Plan Change

Poland has joined seven eastern new member states of the European Union in demanding changes to the bloc's plans for curbing greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change, its environment minister said on Friday. Maciej Nowicki told Reuters that Warsaw wanted auctioning of permits for the power sector to emit carbon dioxide phased in from a starting level of 20 percent in 2013 instead of the 100 percent proposed by the European Commission from 2013.
He said he had presented a joint position with Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to take account of the specific problems of fast-growing former communist economies with carbon-intensive energy sectors.

He said district heating installations built in the communist era should be given special treatment to avoid pushing up prices for heating, which might force people to heat their homes by burning cheap, highly polluting coal.

"Then we would have smog, problems with air pollution and even more CO2," he said on the sidelines of a meeting of EU energy and environment ministers.

France, which took over the EU's rotating presidency this week, has made climate change its top priority and hopes to settle concerns among east European states that curbs on carbon dioxide will push up power prices and stunt economic growth.

The eight eastern states with fast growing catch-up economies are urging the EU to ease their pain when it overhauls the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), the bloc's main tool to curb global warming that makes companies pay for permits to emit CO2.

To ease their transition to a low-carbon economy, the European Commission has proposed that 10 percent of the proceeds from auctioning CO2 permits in rich states be given to poorer states.

Nowicki said the 10 percent was helpful, but called for a further 10 percent for those countries that had cut emissions from 1990 -- just as the east European economies did when they faltered after the collapse of communism. (Reporting by Pete Harrison; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Dale Hudson)

Story by Pete Harrison