A seminar on how legally-binding carbon reduction targets can promote national climate change policy

British Embassy (Madrid), Friday 13 November 2009

Moderators' conclusions

We welcomed the opportunity the seminar provided to exchange experiences on climate legislation. We can all learn a lot from each other and look forward to continuing to work closely together in the future.

To achieve effective action and far-reaching leadership, it is clear that we must use ambitious, long-term targets in addition to legally binding short and mid-term targets and actions. While long-term targets give a clear idea of what has to be done (and confidence to business), short and mid-term ones allow step by step changes and ensure lower levels of accumulated GHG in the atmosphere. This is one of the key lessons from the UK's Climate Change Act, which sets 'radical 'emissions reduction targets not just for 2020 but also 2050, and establishes five year periods of legally binding reductions.

Spain and Portugal, too, have in recent years taken bold steps to reduce emissions, in particular in the area of renewable energy penetration. Nevertheless the two countries could still go further in terms of designing and implementing comprehensive, cross-economy climate policies.

Looking forward to 2050, it is clear that all of Europe needs to make such unprecedented emissions cuts (between 80-95%!) - through, in Ed Miliband's phrase, a 'quiet revolution'. But this revolution offers tremendous opportunities in terms of innovation and job creation in Europe. And also, both in terms of energy security and with competition from China and other rapidly industrialising countries in mind, it is clear that Europe has no option other than to undergo such a complete transformation. It is both in Europe's economic and geopolitical interest.

Climate legislation is one way to help drive such a transformation. In many countries, while awareness of the need to act on climate change has risen significantly in recent years, the policy response can still appear slightly piecemeal. We need a comprehensive approach to climate change policy so that emissions reductions take place across whole economies and at the scale required to meet the emissions cuts needed.

Nuno Lacasta, Director CECAC (Portugal)

Liliane Spendeler, Amigos de la Tierra

Conference presentations

• UK climate change act 2008, James Burt [PDF]
  
• Eurostar: the tread lightly plan, Simon Montague [PDF]
  
• Friends of the Earth, Madrid, L. Hutchinson [PDF]
• Voluntary obligations to reduce emissions (Spanish) [PDF]
• Towards a low carbon economy: The Portguese Experience [PDF]
  

Some feedback on our seminar

Thank you very much again for organizing the event, I think it was a great initiative to arrange a seminar of this kind and it certainly fulfilled my expectations.
Marta Mosquera – Universidad de Alcalá de Henares

Thank you for inviting me to the seminar on the Climate Change Act and congratulations both for the quality of the event as well as for the discussion created, interesting and at the same time paradigmatic for other countries such as Spain, where as it was said, we are far from reaching what has been achieved in the United Kingdom.
Oier Aristizabal - Bellona Europa

Just to say thanks for organizing the seminar last Friday and for inviting me. I found it very useful and the speakers were excellent. I often find such events miss the mark or much of the content is irrelevant, however this seminar was a welcome exception!
Carlos Oppe - Plan de Acción Global

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