Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
and that funds channelled instead towards internal energy e
ciency represent a
much better investment for security. Poorer member states now express explicit
opposition to huge transfers for climate funding to the likes of China, countries
growing fast and su
ering less economically than many EU governments. There
are concerns that EU funding for CCS in China is being wound down without
any real impact having been made.
34
Clash of priorities
A third weakness is that European governments have not acted in ways fully con-
sistent with their proclaimed approach to con
ict and climate change. In practice,
signi
ict is not
simply driven by local groups and tribes battling for scarce resources but the exploi-
tation of those resources by European companies. Inconsistencies between policies
abound: the EU over-
cant tensions have surfaced between di
erent policy aims. Often con
shed o
Somalia and choked o
local exports, then, as local
shermen turned to piracy, had to pick up the pieces with the Atalanta mission.
While the development and con
ict prevention goal has been to increase access to
electricity grids for poor communities, policy-makers charged with registering pro-
gress on climate change goals complain that this sits uneasily with the need to reduce
emissions. They worry that the EU risks pursuing an approach to resource-con
ict
that actually renders such con
ict more likely in the long term. Oxfam and other
critics slammed the Energy 2020 paper for undermining the principle of local access
to energy resources; the document explicitly suggested the EU
s priority should be to
secure access to African resources beyond hydrocarbons for Europe
'
s own energy
needs. Critics complain that European donors have not used aid resources su
'
ciently
to encourage energy decentralisation, for example by buying generators for villages
to cut down on the need for vulnerable cross-border infrastructures.
35
A frequently expressed admonishment heard from environment ministries is that
'
has become a label under which development and climate aid
resources are being deployed in the service of short-term European strategic self-
interest rather than genuinely global progress on climate targets. European donors
have funded projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and other
mechanisms designed to give a quick reduction in their own emissions
climate security
'
gures
rather than of a kind that enhance local access to renewable energy. Moreover,
they have done relatively little to assist the
from new renewable projects, as
a shift in energy patterns nourishes local grievances in many poor countries.
36
The CDM is largely disconnected from local social dynamics, simply implanting
technology that often does not organically dovetail with local conditions. It has
served simply as a crude transfer mechanism: nearly all buying has been from EU
states; nearly all selling has been to China. Some experts criticise governments for
'
losers
'
