EU'S "Green Barriers" For Footwear Manufacturing Dominate The Commanding Heights

Europe is

The core of the "2020 strategy"

In March this year, the EU issued the first draft of the European 2020 strategy.

According to the new strategy, the EU and its Member States will invest heavily in energy conservation, emission reduction, clean energy development, development of new and high technology industries, education and training.

Research shows that by 2020, the EU's employment in the renewable energy sector will be 2 million 800 thousand, double that of 2005.

The formulation of the EU's second ten year plan draws lessons from the "Lisbon plan" formulated in 2000.

The Lisbon plan once regarded the "knowledge economy" as the core of development, but its implementation effect was not satisfactory in the past 10 years. Europe has no advantage over the United States and even Japan in the development of knowledge economy and information industry.

The EU's development strategy for low carbon industries started many years ago.

The concept of "low carbon economy" first appeared in the 2003 of the United Kingdom.

In March 2009, the European Union announced that it would invest 105 billion euros before 2013 to support the "green economy", promote employment and economic growth, and maintain the leading position of the European Union in the field of low-carbon industries.

In October of that year, the European Commission recommended that the EU increase 50 billion euros in the next 10 years for the development of "low carbon technology".

The European Commission has also established a "roadmap" for the development of low-carbon technologies in the European Union by joint business and researchers. It plans to develop low-carbon technologies in six potential areas, such as wind energy, solar energy, bio energy, carbon dioxide capture and storage.

Advocating "mode" output

On the global scale, in recent years, the European Union has not only put forward the slogan of the development of the low carbon industry, but also moves before the other countries and regions.

In addition to maintaining a global leading position in most low-carbon technologies, the EU has also created many unique mechanisms for low-carbon development, such as emissions trading systems.

According to the "cap and trade" system launched in 2005, the EU's overall emission reduction targets have been allocated to all Member States, industries and companies one by one, and now cover 30% to 50% of the industrial and energy sectors in the region.

Emissions trading is considered to be an important tool to achieve emission reduction at the lowest cost. It not only helps the European Union and enterprises to achieve emission reduction commitments, but also provides substantial investment and access to clean technology for developing countries.

The EU's effective mode of developing low carbon industry is becoming a global model. It not only carries out "technology export" to the whole world, but also carries out "mode output".

For example, the US clean energy and Safety Act, which was completed in June 2009, is based on the EU's "cap and trade" system and distributive "carbon emissions" step by step in legislation and market pactions.

In order to create a new market for the EU's "low carbon mode" and "low carbon technology", the EU is strongly attacking the current climate change negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations.

In the negotiations, the EU's role of "emission reduction vanguard" has been changed for many years. It proposes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% on the basis of 1990 in 2020. "If other major countries take similar actions", the target will be raised to 30%.

With the ability to achieve higher emission reduction targets, the EU has proposed "conditional" emission reduction commitments, not only to let the developed countries such as the United States and Japan share more emission reduction responsibilities, but also to allow some developing economies to reduce emissions.

These are the most important markets for EU technology exports.

If the EU's negotiating strategy is successful, it will mean hundreds of billions of dollars in trade opportunities.

Parallel competition between China and Europe

The EU regards the "low carbon economy" as the core of future development, which will have a comprehensive impact on the whole European market.

The European Union is China's largest trading partner, and the future entry of Chinese commodities into the EU market must obtain a "low carbon" pass.

For example, whether the "carbon tariffs" under discussion will have a fatal impact on China's export pattern is not yet known.

But Chinese exporters can see that the EU's environmental standards are being tighter.

For example, in October 2009, the EU passed the new regulations, and generally increased the environmental standards of textiles, footwear and electrical appliances. This directly restricted the entry of some low-end products into the EU market.

The European Union also proposed unilaterally that the airline industry should be included in the emissions trading system in 2012. The airlines entering and leaving the European Union will pay at least 2 billion 400 million euro's "tolls" every year. At present, many Chinese airlines including Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Hainan airlines have been included in the system.

At the same time, the two sides also have huge cooperation space in the development of low carbon economy.

Data from the UK's Chatham institute show that both sides account for about 30% of the world's total energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions account for about 30% of the total global emissions. China and the EU are interdependent in terms of energy and climate security. Their common interests also lead to broad cooperation between the two sides in the field of low-carbon industries.

The United Nations Development Programme's China Human Development Report 2010 pointed out that China needs at least 60 more backbone technical support to achieve the goal of low-carbon industry in the future, of which 42 are the core technologies that China does not currently grasp.

For example, the European Ministry of Commerce speculated that the scale of China's clean energy market will reach US $555 billion by 2020, the largest clean energy market in the world.

European clean energy technology and research and development are at the leading level in the world.

Some experts suggest that China and the EU can choose win-win measures and expand low-carbon trade and investment by establishing new market incentive mechanisms to capture carbon and economic growth at the same time.