Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-15-Speech-3-033"
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"en.19991215.3.3-033"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Kyoto is clearly one of the major challenges for the 21st century, yet the way that we resolve the issue of climate change may greatly affect future civilisation. Parliament must therefore repeat its formal reservations about the right to pollute system, otherwise known as the flexibility mechanism. If we really want to solve the enormous problem of the greenhouse effect, we cannot operate a system in which everything can be bought and sold, including the right to pollute. This is not true to our values and it will create profound inequalities.
We could take as an example the situation in the former Soviet Union, in what is now Russia. This country is in decline and its development is threatened. There is therefore enormous potential for it to trade its rights to pollute. So the Americans, taking advantage of their status as a rich country, and despite having imposed this mechanism on us, supposedly to ensure the application of the Kyoto decisions, are not only not applying these decisions themselves but are also manoeuvring to trade these infamous rights to pollute with Russia.
The richest countries can therefore pay to keep the rest under-developed so that they themselves do not have to make the efforts which they could. This is unacceptable and Europe must say so. Regardless of the Americans, Europe must say that it will ratify the Kyoto Protocol without getting involved in the right to pollute system. The Commission must talk to Russia to ensure that it does not engage in these talks with the Americans and so that we can find other ways forward together.
Finally, Europe must act within its Member States and at Community level. I would suggest that Europe and the Commission pursue two initiatives. The first concerns the excellent work initiated by Jacques Delors on piggyback transport and the major non-polluting transport infrastructures to replace the lorry and the car. This work must finally be taken forward with financing from the European Union. The second, in the car sector, involves establishing a renewal strategy for old cars, in addition to the standards which we have adopted, given that these cars produce considerably more pollution than newer vehicles."@en1
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