Think what you will about the notion of man-made global warming, one of the constant features of the whole climate debate is the way that the EU has been hectoring the US about its failure to curb carbon emissions.
Now we find this:
“Further efforts are needed to tackle climate change, the UN has warned in a fresh report, with greenhouse gas emissions in many EU states rising instead of decreasing. The Bonn-based United Nations Climate Change secretariat in a report released on Thursday (17 November) warned that the western world is losing its grip on the climate change problem.
UN researchers found that overall in the industrialised world, greenhouse gas emissions were down 5.9 percent in 2003 compared to the 1990 levels. But the UN report says a large part of the reductions were achieved in Central and Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, as heavily-polluting industry stemming from the communist era were shut down as these countries restructured their economies…The EU as a bloc achieved a reduction of 1.4 percent in emissions from 1990 to 2003, still far away from the minus 8 percent target in 2012 that the Europeans have set themselves in the framework of the international Kyoto protocol. Former communist new member states witnessed sizable reductions as dirty plants closed, with the largest cuts reported in Latvia (58%) and Lithuania (66%). However, most “old” member states have seen emissions increasing instead of decreasing. Eleven of the fifteen old member states have reported emissions going up instead of down since 1990, with huge increases seen in Spain (41.7%), Portugal (36.7%), Greece (25.8%), Ireland (25.6%), Finland (21.5%) and Austria (16.5%).”
Tsk tsk tsk.