EU law and climate change

We need more Europe, not less” Angela Merkel proclaimed in 2012 to the annoyance of eurosceptics. She was speaking in the context of the global financial crisis, but a parallel climate crisis is unfolding that is likely to have a much greater impact than any austerity measure. The EU has a track record of innovation in the field of environmental law. We might ask then whether Angela Merkel’s prescription for more Europe holds good for the climate also?

Environmental problems have never been respecters of borders or political authority, and today the implications of this are profound. Population growth is accelerating. The concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere has risen rapidly from 270 ppm at the start of the industrial age to just over 400 ppm today, a change that would normally have taken many millennia and a level not seen for 3 million years. At the same time, we are witnessing what many believe to be the sixth mass extinction.

Such changes have always occurred, but their scale and pace is now unprecedented. Natural variations in the climate have always produced winners and losers as societies in one location are undermined while those in another thrive. But this pattern has been disrupted environmental, economic and societal pressures have intensified and multiplied. A robust scientific consensus now gives fair warning that avoiding the most serious climate risks requires GHG emissions to peak in 2020 and fall rapidly thereafter. A ‘business-as-usual’ model of significantly rising emissions will simply guarantee that everyone in our highly interdependent and interconnected world loses.

new york

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