Fears are growing in Brussels that climate policy could become a political football in any referendum on EU membership, following British Prime Minister David Cameron’s declaration of intent yesterday (23 January) to hold an in/out poll.
The UK Independent Party (UKIP), which has links to the eurosceptic right of Cameron’s Conservatives, launched a petition on 21 January calling for the EU’s climate and energy targets to be suspended.
The petition’s professed objectives – to prevent carbon leakage, stop ‘wasting money’ on unilateral climate measures, reduce energy prices and increase energy security by allowing more fossil fuel use – are widely shared on the Conservative right and among Europe’s energy-intensive industries.
UKIP's initiative may not reach the million signatures needed to activate EU policy-making processes, but it has set alarms ringing that climate change could enter the UK’s Europe debate by the backdoor. To Read More…..
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