Czech Republic behind schedule on emissions reduction?

Our Karolína Kvačková, in her newest blog, explores the issue of emissions reduction and the Czech republic position towards meeting the European Commission criteria.

• Last week the European Commission released new information that Czech Republic and 8 other member states are behind schedule on reducing emissions. All countries in question; Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, have until mid-March to deliver documents proving genuine effort to meet the quotas. If there will be no sufficient proof, sanctions will be in order. Of course, the sanctions are for now very unrealistic and blur.

The Czech Republic has been successful in meeting its goals in using and creating new renewable sources of energy, which, despite being meagre, has to be deemed a success. On the other hand, it is also behind with cuts in emissions. For several years, the country has struggled with heavy air pollution in urban areas, which in many cases leads to premature deaths.

Again, the bargaining power of the European Commission and EU over the states is low due to economic strategy and financial profits. The most usual punishment is cutting the EU funding to branches like agriculture or industry or the disobeying members have to pay fines. It is hard to tell which is going to be used, but it is definite that Czech Republic is going to lose money.

However, Prague is rather going opposite direction. Instead of following the green and sustainable flow, it goes against the current; one of the districts in the center tries to ban riding a bike in the pedestrian zones, just to name one example.

The full article is available on EurActiv.

Karolína Kvačková
Intern