The first story of pain hits the news

[Suff]

And it's not the UK. In order to meet the Paris accord and the 2030 target, the EU needed the big reduction by the UK. When, not if, the UK Brexits, the UK contribution will have to be met by other countries.

The UK, on the other hand, has already met the 2020 requirements and is working on 2030 hard. But I expect that to be slightly derailed until the full impact of Brexit is known.

So the EU is already starting to wake up to the "contribution" the UK made to the EU. All those countries who told Cameron "you may NOT" are going to rue the day. This is just the first in a long list of items where the UK was a significant contributor to the EU and was never given recognition for it.

WM and I have often said that the UK should have engaged more and shaped the EU more. However I was reading an interesting article, yesterday, which was discussing how France and Germany clubbed together on many occasions to explicitly deny the UK influence and power in the EU.

There are a lot of things about Brexit I'm really going to enjoy. One of them is the whinging EU's sudden realisation that they were the "bad guys" and now they're going to have to face the cost. The cost of additional CO2 mitigation is one thing, the cost of re-funding the UK net contribution to the budget is going to be something else again. I expect the EU to dangle a lot of large carrots out there to try and keep that money. I truly hope that the UK negotiators don't bite. They'll be poisoned...

[Workingman]

How nice it must have been for the Eurocrats to look at the figures and see progress being made. What a lovely warm feeling. What they forgot was that most of the reductions were being made by one country: the UK. When we leave our figures will be lost to the EU and it will be sixpence half-a-crown time.

Ah well, if Germany, France and Italy have to pick up the slack, so be it.

[Kate1933]

Can anyone be trusted? Why do we hear nothing of the scheming and "abuse" of Britain's contributions to the EU until such times as this, and why did Cameron fight to stay within the EU when he must of been aware of that underhand abuse being dished out to us as a nation.

[Suff]

WM, Germany can't fill the gap, their going non nuclear has actually increased their CO2 emissions, not dropped them. France, who uses 75% nuclear already, refuses to do more until others do.

The pain will fall to Italy, Spain, Portugal, who have all ridden on the UK coat tails and not reduced their emissions.

I find it quite interesting that the EU was very happy for the UK to spend 19 Billion to get a French Energy company to build our Nuclear stations so that the EU could get the benefit of the UK being ahead of the UK targets....

This has always been the issue with the EU for me. We lead, most of them don't. But a leader in a pack of malcontents tends to find themsleves both shunned and cut off. Time for the pack of malcontents to sort their house out and stop relying on the same people they dismiss.

Spain and their refusal to talk CAP or CFP. Suffer..... My sympathy is not limited, in this case it does not exist at all..