A year in the hot seat

EU climate commissioner – the hardest job, or rebel without a cause?

Connie Hedegaard is the first-ever European commissioner for climate action, a post created by European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to show that the EU is serious about tackling global warming. Almost one year into the job, how is she faring?

Tomas Wyns, a campaigner at the Climate Action Network, gives her credit for helping to keep international negotiations inching forward after the letdown of the Copenhagen climate conference.

“Connie Hedegaard has picked up really quickly after Copenhagen and shown some courageous creative thinking in how to move the climate debate forward,” he says.

But the commissioner has not made friends in industries that are heavy users of carbon. The paper industry (in advertisments in this newspaper) has labelled her Europe's “new tax commissioner” for overseeing tighter rules on emissions trading. The steel industry has claimed that EU policy could lead to the de-industrialisation of Europe.

Observers' views
Perceptions of the effectiveness of the climate-action commissioner are shaped by their views on climate change. Derk-Jan Eppink, a Belgian MEP in the European Conservatives and Reformists group, says it was a bad idea to create the climate-action dossier in the first place. “As a political issue it has been fading and public support has been crumbling,” he says.

Eppink detects that Hedegaard has a “missionary zeal about climate change” but thinks the combination of public opposition, leaked University of East Anglia emails, the absence of US legislation and cold winters have left her “a rebel without a cause”.

Tests ahead
Claude Turmes, a Luxembourgeois Green MEP, says that this will be a critical year. “2010 was a good start for Hedegaard but the litmus test for the climate commissioner will be in 2011 – will she be able to move the Commission and member states to accept a 30% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions in 2020? Everything else, like talk on possible 2030 targets, is pure diversion from what really counts – early reductions in Europe to re-launch the momentum of the international talks,” he says.

For Chris Davies, a British Liberal who sits on the European Parliament's environment committee, Hedegaard will never succeed unless the rest of the Commission buys into climate action. At the moment, the Commission remains “departmentalised” and shows “great reluctance to endorse her agenda”, he thinks.

“It is an impossible job for the commissioner to lead on the international stage while she has one hand tied behind her back fighting turf wars in the Commission.

“If the Commission collectively wants Connie Hedegaard to succeed, she will succeed. If the Commission does not back her, she will fail.”

Cancun decisions

Goal to keep global warming below 2°C. This was pledged at Copenhagen last year, but is now in a UN document for the first time.
Review of climate goals in 2015 to assess whether a commitment to keep global warming below 1.5°C is needed.
Green Climate Fund to be set up that will channel most climate money, with the aim of securing total funds of $100 billion (€76bn) per year for developing countries by 2020.
Developing countries that protect forests will receive finance.
Process to ensure transparent monitoring and reporting of emission-reduction pledges agreed.