CYPRUS: U.S.-EU CLIMATE CHANGE COOPERATION

UNCLAS NICOSIA 000179 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KGHG SENV ENRG EUN CY SUBJECT: CYPRUS: U.S.-EU CLIMATE CHANGE COOPERATION REF: STATE 24257 (U) This cable is sensitive but unclassified. Please treat accordingly. ¶1. (U) Action request in para 3. ¶2. (SBU) Further to Reftel request, Post Econ Officer and Econ Specialist met with Mr. Theodoulos Mesimeris, Environment Officer and person responsible for Climate Change policy at the GOC's Environment Service (under the Ministry of Agriculture). Mesimeris welcomed our commitment to cooperate on a more effective outcome in ongoing climate change discussions. He also took note of our position that a 25-40 percent cut in emissions for Annex 1 countries was overly ambitious, agreed that more focus should be placed on bringing developing nations into a global Climate Change regime, and promised to convey our views to the highest GOC level. Cyprus will be represented at the March 13-14 meeting of the European Council by the newly-appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs (and former EU SANCO Commissioner) Marcos Kyprianou. President Christofias may also attend the meeting, although we have no confirmation on that. ¶3. (SBU) Given the opportunity of our meeting, Mesimeris proposed bilateral (Cyprus-US) cooperation on a project involving emissions reductions. Specifically, the GOC is very interested in obtaining U.S. "technology transfer" for methane gas collection for energy production from landfills. We encouraged Mesimeris to pursue this suggestion at the March 13-14 meeting of the European Council and he promised to convey our suggestion to his political supervisors. Post would appreciate Washington's guidance on Mesimeris' suggestion. SCHLICHER