Minister Warns of Environment Obligations after 2012
Environment and Spatial Planning Minister Janez Podobnik warned on Wednesday that countries should start getting ready today for the problems they will face in meeting the obligations under the Kyoto agreement after 2012.
Podobnik, speaking at the opening of a two-day international environment workshop in Ljubljana, said that while the majority of the countries have no problems in fulfilling their obligations at the moment, the matters are about to change after 2012.
The workshop is meant to prepare the new EU members, acceding countries and accession candidates, in meeting their environment obligations after 2012, will stress Cyprus, Malta Slovenia and Hungary.
Cyprus and Malta are not yet included into the first appendix of the Kyoto protocol and thus have no obligations in the first commitment period. Meanwhile, Slovenia will need a lot of work and money to reduce its emissions in the 2008-2012 period by 8% in comparison with 1986, Podobnik added.
In order to achieve that, the country has amended its operational plan of greenhouse gas reduction in 2006, which now includes several new provisions such as environment-friendly public tenders and CO2 emissions car licensing, he added.
The country moreover intends to keep 40% of greenhouse gases on the same level in the 2008-2012 period through the new emission coupon distribution plan, he explained.
He also called for changes to public transport and to rerouting transit traffic onto trains, as Slovenia's geo-strategical position makes it very prone to a rise in emissions from road transit.
The workshop is organised by the German ECOLOGIC institute for international and environment policies. It is attended also by the representatives of the Finnish EU presidency.
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