Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-15-Speech-3-022"
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"en.19991215.3.3-022"2
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"Mr President, Mrs Hassi, Commissioner, the issue under discussion concerns the outcome of the fifth conference on the Kyoto Protocol in Bonn. As clearly stated in our motion for a resolution, the results of the Kyoto Protocol are unsatisfactory on several accounts. Climate change is continuing, for which reason further strict measures for reducing greenhouse gases must be taken by 2010. It is already seven years since the Earth Summit in Rio where firm commitments were made without any really positive consequences having resulted to date. Regrettably, there is still a major element missing from this motion. This is the people. We should not forget that, regardless of the measures which may be taken by individual Member States or the European Union as a whole, it is the people as consumers who, through their habits and behaviour, will promote change and impose this on decision makers. There is therefore a real urgency for wide-ranging measures to now be adopted in order to involve the people in decision making on this subject. In this way, they will feel more responsible for the climate change phenomenon. This could be achieved, for example, through wider information campaigns bringing pressure to bear on people’s behaviour. Our resolution on the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in October, was clearly heading in this direction by demanding a coordinated strategy for informing the public in a clear, understandable and accessible manner. I am thinking, for example, of certain aerosols which we use extensively in our daily life. It is through these concrete and tangible measures that Europe will enter our homes and our habits.
Finally, I must comment on the subject of a CO2/energy tax which the motion mentions in paragraph 14. Although I am not against the principle of taxing polluting emissions, I do believe that these measures must respect two principles. On the one hand they must try to guarantee tax neutrality and, on the other, they must cover the whole of the industrialised world, or at least the OECD, so that ecological dumping or competition distortions do not arise.
Climate change is not inevitable, yet it is only by involving the main actors – people and industry – and by making them responsible that we will overcome the obstacles."@en1
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