Imagine the fate of a global climate treaty without the EU
Seven months and counting
In 1972 the law was passed that allowed the UK to join what was then called the European Economic Community (EEC). Despite Europe’s current crises, it’s unchanging, fundamental challenge was expressed that year by Sicco Mansholt, then president of the European commission, probably better than by any of the current voices in the referendum campaign, whether for or against UK remaining in.
“Will the EEC become a powerful agent for improving living standards and opportunity in solidarity with less fortunate countries?” asked Mansholt, “Or will it remain a select inward-looking club of some of the world’s richest nations? Will it continue to produce ‘bigger, faster and more’ for ‘some’ to the detriment of the global environment and the welfare of the ‘rest’?”
Leap forward 20 years to the Rio Earth summit where Europe lobbied hard, and Germany and France floated the idea of a World Environment Organisation to counterbalance the World Trade Organisation, and commission president, Jacques Delors, said Europe would lose credibility if: “These agreements signed in Rio remain a dead letter and do not give birth to ambitious policies that respond to the scale of the challenge that faces us.”
In the near half century since Mansholt framed Europe’s challenge, rather than working to resolve such tensions, however, two contradictory dynamics have taken hold.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/imagine-the-fate-of-a-global-climate-treaty-without-the-eu
