This programme will give a new push to the EU Climate Change policies, before and beyond the Kyoto deadline of 2012.

For this, the Commission seeks the cooperation with all stakeholders. At the launch, last week at a stakeholders conference in Brussels, Dimas announced the establishment of five working groups: on actual implementation of EU policies in Member States, on aviation, on passenger road transport, on zero emission plants and on adaptation policies. Within these working groups, Dimas expects to explore ‘new grounds’ in the fight against climate change. Finding new cost-effective measures and technologies are top priority. The working groups are expected to produce recommendations in about a year’s time.

Both in Montreal and in the future negotiations, the EU commissioner promised an ‘open and constructive approach’. But the main target, limiting the rise in global temperature to a maximum of 2 degrees, remains the red line. Dimas referred to the target already formulated by the EU: 15 to 30 % greenhouse gas emissions reduction in 2020.