Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-16-Speech-4-176"
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"en.20001116.10.4-176"2
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"Mr President, unlike many others who will be speaking this afternoon, I do not have many constituents who suffered horrendously from flooding in the UK. Luckily, London escaped with small-scale floods, partly from rivers we had forgotten still existed because we run them through culverts.
We have, however, contributed to the causes of these floods of which those in Western Europe are only the latest result of a series of extreme and fluctuating weather conditions. This, of course, will be of small consolation to those living with filthy water running through their houses and who might be facing enormous financial loss.
I agree that we need to do all that we can to assist them, but we would help most by changing the situation that has caused their misery and that of countless others throughout the world. Locally, we can stop covering flood plain and water meadows with concrete. We can change our pattern of agricultural production and we can use strategic environmental impact assessment to enable us to work with nature rather than assuming we can conquer it.
In global terms, we know our use of fossil fuel is profligate and we have not taken sufficient steps to reduce the climate-change gases we produce. We have an opportunity to make progress at The Hague in the discussions there this week and next. We have to implement the agreements we have already reached, but we also have to do as the Treaty states and integrate the environmental perspective into all areas of Union policy and practice, and Member States must be prepared to do this as well.
We have to move away from running our economies as if cheap fossil fuel is a good thing. We have to pay the full price for these fuels and we have to shift to a low-carbon economy. For once, I can agree with the words of the British Prime Minister on this and I now await his actions with eagerness.
The EU has a wonderful opportunity to really take a lead in this change to an ecologically sustainable society where we will not have to deal with floods partly caused by our own inability to face up to the consequences of our own actions."@en1
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