Climate politics

Mark Mardell reflects on the future of the EU's environmental agenda

What links these snapshots from my year?

The Polish peat bog was a peaceful, even primordial setting, the bull rushes and reeds, waving in the wind, the wetlands in the valley flanked by tall pines. There was silence apart from the twitter of bird song and the splash of our Wellingtons. Until I took a wrong step and started to sink, trying to twist myself free but falling over with a splash. The birds scattered as our laughter rent the air, as my producer and a woman from the Polish bird society tried to heave my bulk out of the bog.

Driving round the Brussels ring road in a sleek black sports car, a vehicle right outside my usual league, recording a radio piece about how people love beasts of machines that can go way faster than the legal speed limit.

Inwardly groaning as the Spanish Marquis said in a perfect English public school accent: “yes, I will agree to an interview on one condition”. We had traveled a fair way just to be on his estate near Toledo so we listened patiently to his condition. “An interview only if you join me for lunch.” Over wines even further out of my league than the sports car he explained how he was importing irrigation equipment from Australia and Israel and buying land in northern Spain because of the changing climate.

So what has dominated my year? The new European treaty? Competition policy? No: the environment.

The spice of every journalist's life is variety and I knew in this patch I would get plenty of it. My pitch for the new job of BBC's Europe editor was that I would go to beyond those pictures of men and women meeting in Brussels and show instead what their decision meant to people all over the European Union. But I didn’t realize how much time I would spend in the country side and wandering around electricity generating stations covering the EU and climate change.

Perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise. After all, as a political project, the environment is an answer to some EU politicians' prayers. The two years that I have been doing this job have coincided with a period of self-declared crisis in the European Union. But it’s a very gentle crisis compared to all those the continent has suffered in its history. An existential crisis of the sort suffered by those with the luxury of time to reflect and examine purpose and destiny without the struggle to get though the day.

The crisis was brought on by the Dutch and French "no" votes in referendums on the European constitution. A period of reflection was followed by the Berlin declaration, a general statement of aims and aspirations, and now the new European reform treaty. At each stage there were dire warnings that a Europe of 27 could not function on the old rules; that Europe was in danger of becoming directionless, and without ambition.

You could have fooled me. During this time the EU settled a difficult budget round and admitted two new members, Romania and Bulgaria. But most importantly it enthusiastically embraced new policies on energy. It boldly declared that its mission was to save the world from itself. It would set the highest standards on the globe. It would be the driving force behind the effort to fight climate change.

This was a policy minted in Britain. It was after all the new foreign secretary, David Miliband, in his previous incarnation as environment secretary who suggested that "EU" should stand for "environmental union". But successive British Government had long seen energy policy as one of the preserves of national governments, where Brussels shouldn't stick its nose.

But some time in 2005 Tony Blair performed a little noticed U-turn. This wasn't just backing down: he was embracing "the environmental union" to such an extent that he put it top of the agenda at the Hampton court summit during the British presidency. Less than a year later it was the Commission's newest and boldest policy.

It was also a direct response to the EU's crisis. It wasn't really a crisis because of the lack of new rules, but a crisis of confidence, of self doubt. Above all the Dutch and French votes had brought home forcibly to the people who live in office blocks in Brussels that their organization is widely disliked in Europe. It’s not just in Britain that many see it as an over-powerful bureaucracy imposing pointless rules. This led to a new determination that the EU should sell its self hard and seek out causes where it can demonstrate a beneficial impact on people's lives.

It was Tony Blair who saw the potential of the environment as a political tool to re-engage people in politics. For a while he and others had been casting around for something to symbolize their belief that politics could make a real difference in the world for good: that it could represent a cause that people could believe in. Poverty and Africa is always popular, but it most attracts those who might be vaguely politically active in the first place. While it's not difficult to spell out the connection between failing states and personal security, it is an add-on and not central to most people's concerns. The fight against terrorism has the opposite problem. It's too controversial too dark to do the job.

But the environment works like a dream. Since the European elections in the 1980s when Tory ministers found to their huge surprise that their daughters had voted green, ministers have slowly woken up to the environment as an electoral issue. But the danger of climate change pushed it into a completely different league. It provides a frisson of danger and a hint of urgency, while suggestive of a world-wide altruism.

If the environment could work political wonders in Britain it is even more suitable as a European cause. Probably the only EU policy that receives positive cover in the British tabloid press is the blue flag clean beaches awards. Environmental pressure groups single out an EU policy on preserving natural habitats, Natura 2000, as one of the most important such laws in the world.

Whether you are talking about pesticides, pollution or global warming it is obvious that these problems do not respect borders. Even the most dedicated Eurosceptic wouldn’t argue that one country alone can deal with the problem by just reducing its own carbon dioxide emissions. They might of course argue that the EU is too small a forum and its policies won't work. But polling evidence suggests that fighting climate change is one thing people want the EU to do, and to do more.

So at the beginning of this year the European Commission announced that the EU would cut green house gases by 20% by 2020. With this go a raft of planned laws which will effect things as disparate as how new houses are built, to what sort of cars we drive, to plans to store CO2 underground and develop new technologies.

It also gives the European Union the chance to preach to the United States, something most of its members rather delight in. There are Europeans who are rather fed up with being told about the coming power of India and China, seeing themselves relegated to the junior league. So there is a desire to provide moral leadership. Speaking recently at the United Nations the Commission's president Jose Manuel Barroso said that the missing "X factor" in the climate change debate was "ambitious leadership", before adding: "the EU has made those commitments and I invite others to join us".

Climate change is not the only thing driving the European Union’s energy policy. The buzz word at the moment is “energy security”. Just as the widely disparaged common agricultural policy was designed after the second world war with the expressed aim that Europeans would never be short of food again, so energy policy is aimed at ensuring the lights don't go out all over Europe.

“Energy security” is such a bland phrase. What it means is that Europe doesn’t trust Russia to keep the oil and gas flowing. But in a few years' time over half of Europe's energy needs will come from Russia. At the moment the figure is around 40%. So one aim is to make sure Russia behaves. But the other is to build alternative supply lines from other parts of the world and to develop alternatives like wind, wave, biomass and nuclear power. There's already a call for an "energy security supremo" under the umbrella of the European Union's developing foreign policy.

Tackling climate change is not likely to be a flash in the EU pan. Given the snails' pace at which laws are designed, the arguments and the voting will go on for a while yet. Doubtless the warm glow will wear off as industry discovers more problems and others find holes in the plans. By the target date the plans could look hopelessly inadequate or a pathetic over-reaction. It could lead to more red tape and energy policy could be another white elephant like the CAP. But when more flesh is put on the bones of the Commission's plans at the end of the year some in the Foreign Office would like ministers to make a fuss and point out that this is a policy with "made in Britain" stamped on its bottom.

Mark Mardell is the BBC's Europe editor, covering the politics of Europe and the European Union. His blog on European politics can be found on the BBC website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/