Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-05-Speech-4-140"
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"en.20010405.6.4-140"2
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".
Although the decision announced recently by the United States to reject the Kyoto Protocol has not come as a surprise, it is nonetheless extremely serious.
III) To adopt National Reduction Plans for greenhouse gases by the end of 2001;
IV) To present the directive on the implementation of the European Emissions-Trading System by the end of 2001;
V) To present, under the European Programme for Climate Change, a raft of copper-bottomed directives on policies and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the industry, energy, services, agriculture and mainly, transport sectors, in which emissions are increasing most rapidly.
VI) For the European Commission to draft an economic study on the competitive advantages that American products, particularly in the field of energy, will gain illegally over European products as a result of the European Union not implementing the Kyoto Convention;
VII) For the European Commission to draft a legal study to determine the way in which, within supranational institutions, particularly the World Trade Organisation and the Transatlantic Economic Partnership, these illegal advantages, to which I referred in my previous point, can be minimised.
It comes as no surprise because despite the fact that the United States signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, at successive United Nations Conferences designed to finalise the rules for implementing the Protocol, it has presented various excuses to block negotiations.
This is serious because national self-interest has won the day. It is unacceptable that, given the increasingly dramatic predictions of the effects of global warming, the country mainly responsible for greenhouse gas emissions has refused to participate in the only international instrument designed to limit these effects.
As serious as this decision is, however, we cannot waver or hesitate over the need to implement the Kyoto Protocol, with or without the United States. It is crucial that we put a brake on climate change and the Kyoto Protocol – and no other type of agreement – is the most appropriate political instrument to achieve this objective. The non-participation of the United States does make the Protocol less comprehensive, but does not detract from its raison d’être. This may make application of the protocol more difficult, but it does not make it impossible.
The statement by the United States and the fact that COP6 part II, a conference designed to adopt the rules for implementing the Kyoto Protocol, forces the European Union to redouble its efforts and demonstrate effective leadership in this political dossier. Both internally, by countering the very harmful developments in greenhouse gas emissions in most Member States and externally, by negotiating the rules for implementing the Protocol with as many countries as possible to ensure that it is ratified and implemented by 2002.
The European also has the task of fighting to ensure that the rules of fair trade are implemented so that the United States cannot gain any illegal economic advantages from not ratifying the Protocol.
At the moment therefore, rather than insisting on a dialogue of the deaf with the United States, the European Union must implement an action plan that will enable us to implement Kyoto across the board, in other words, with as many countries as possible, and as a matter of urgency, by 2002. This action plan must enable us to achieve the following set of timetabled goals:
I) To negotiate, even before COP6 part II, the rules for implementing the Kyoto Protocol with Russia, Japan, Australia, Canada and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in order to reach an agreement that can be ratified by more than 55 countries, corresponding to more than 55% of emissions, which is the minimum level required for the Kyoto Protocol to come into force;
II) For the EU to ratify the Kyoto Protocol by the end of 2001;"@en1
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