The EU Parliament’s environment committee on Wednesday urged member states to ringfence some of the revenue to be raised from auctioning post-2020 EUAs for foreign climate aid, piling further pressure on finance chiefs to stump up money for poorer nations.
The MEPs voted 55 votes to 5 to earmark the cash as part of a non-binding resolution that forms a more ambitious mandate than the one agreed by EU environment ministers last week.
The MEPs’ mandate, to be voted on by the full parliament on Oct. 14, will not form part of the bloc’s negotiating position at UN climate talks in Paris late this year, but piles pressure on EU government negotiators to keep ambition high at the summit.
While environment ministers agreed on a negotiating mandate last week, the bloc’s finance ministers are yet to finalise how EU treasuries will propose to contribute to a $100 billion/year commitment to provide climate finance to poorer nations by 2020.
The MEPs also voted for EU negotiators to push for a clear roadmap of financial commitments leading up to the $100 billion level in 2020, and for revenues to be raised by taxing international aviation and shipping emissions.
UN climate chief Christiana Figueres expects donor governments to outline their plans for climate finance – a key element of getting poorer nations to the table in Paris – at a meeting of finance ministers in Lima on Oct. 9.
Development and environmental campaigners see the ringfenced EUA cash as a relatively secure way for the bloc to assure developing nations that the EU is making good on its international climate finance commitments.
Sources told Carbon Pulse in July that EU officials had been considering including the idea in their legislative proposal for post-2020 ETS reforms. It eventually merely recommended that member states do so, leaving the decision up to them.
