SLOVENIA SAYS COUNCIL LIKELY TO GO FORWARD WITH

UNCLAS LJUBLJANA 000121 SIPDIS C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (TAGS ORDER) SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SENV ENRG KGHG EUN SI SUBJECT: SLOVENIA SAYS COUNCIL LIKELY TO GO FORWARD WITH CLIMATE CHANGE RECOMMENDATION, PROVIDES POSITIVE FEEDBACK OF HLD REF: SECSTATE 24257 ¶1. (SBU) On March 11, Emboff briefed reftel talking points on U.S.-EU climate change cooperation to Andrej Kranjc--Secretary for International Relations at the Slovenian Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning--who is Slovenia's national coordinator on climate change issues. Kranjc took note of the USG's concern that a European Council recommendation that Annex I Parties collectively reduce emissions by 25-40 percent could undermine existing climate change processes, but he stressed that the EU position has been well established by now and expressed doubt that the Council would step back from this position. When asked why the EU had selected such an ambitious--but by many accounts--unrealistic target for reducing emissions, he pushed back, explaining that what is considered "realistic" depends on the ambitions of the individual country. Regarding the wording of the Council recommendation, he said that although he had not seen a draft of the text, he imagined it would reiterate the points made in the energy package endorsed by the European Commission in January. ¶2. (SBU) Kranjc provided a positive readout of the March 7 U.S.-EU High level Dialogue on Climate Change, which he attended as part of Slovenia's EU presidency delegation. Kranjc described the dialogue as being very frank and commented that he did not expect such an open exchange of views. He considered this openess to be highly constructive and identified what he considered to be a slow convergence of views between the U.S. and the EU. He noted that he got our message that the U.S. is now more amenable to an international agreement that would hold Indian and China accountable but not necessarily to the same standard as the developed countries. He opined that this presents an opportunity for real movement on the issue, since India--and to a lesser degree China--would never sign on to an international agreement that held them to the same standard as developed countries. ¶3. (SBU) When asked about the proposed seminar that would bring the EU together with developing countries to discuss climate change under the direction of the EU presidency, Kranjc said that it now appears the seminar would have to he held after the late-March/early-April UNFCCC climate change talks in Bangkok. COLEMAN