The Icelandic Minister of the Environment, Thorunn Sveinbjarnardottir, yesterday unveiled the government´s new environmental policy which will be presented at the UN climate change conference in Bali.
The policy supports the target of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 and ensuring that the atmosphere is no warmer than 2°C above the average temperature of the Earth before the industrial revolution began.
According to Iceland Review, the Left Green party criticised the new policy calling it “pretty wrapping paper around nothing”, whilst the Chairman of the Progressive Party, Gudni Agustsson, said there was nothing new.
The two coalition government parties, the Independence Party and the Social Democrats, have so far disagreed on what policy Iceland should present at the current 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Bali.
Representatives of both parties met on Monday night in order to try and reach an agreement. The Minister of the Environment, who comes from the left-leaning Social Democrat party, believes Iceland should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in line with EU members when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Meanwhile Prime Minister Geir Haarde, leader of the liberal Independence Party, has said that the special exemptions Iceland secured at Kyoto should be extended. Iceland was then allowed to increase greenhouse gas emissions by 10 per cent whilst other countries were required to cut their emissions by around 5 per cent.
The Minister of the Environment will travel to Bali on Saturday where she will present the new policy.