Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-05-Speech-4-159"
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"en.20010405.9.4-159"2
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"Mr President, there was palpable shock and disappointment at President Bush's recent announcement that the US will not cooperate with efforts to decrease carbon emissions in the endeavour to stave off the real threat of global warming. The US, with 5% of the world's population, produces 25% of the world's greenhouse gases. For President Bush to tell the EU delegation in Washington this week that he acknowledges both the problem and the need to find a solution is hollow rhetoric, when the US distances itself from the only solution on the table, and that a partial solution at best.
Kyoto is only the beginning of the way forward. What is President Bush afraid of? Many of the Kyoto signatories, including my own country, are failing to meet our agreed targets; but we must keep trying, we must keep talking – at Bonn next in June or July – and endeavour to reach the targets set for all the difficulties posed in the short term.
The longer-term consequences will be far more difficult to resolve. It is not a question of the environment, or of employment. The promotion and protection of economic competitiveness is inextricably linked to the protection of the environment. Well-managed environments are themselves a source of wealth creation through agriculture, tourism and the maintenance of assimilative capacity.
Environmental protection is therefore a matter of enlightened self-interest for the future economic wellbeing and competitiveness of Europe, the US and the entire world. Viewed this way, environmental protection becomes part of a virtuous circle whereby a high-quality environment is sustained by wealth, which in turn is sustained by competition, which in turn requires a high-quality environment. Yes, environmental orthodoxies must be constantly scrutinised and re-evaluated to ensure that the protection required is proportionate and effective.
What Kyoto requires of us all is just that: proportionate and effective responses to the global threat of climate change. And developed countries and communities have a particular responsibility. Great sensitivity, tolerance and compassion must be employed when it is proposed to apply the environmental standards of the developed world to the economies and environments of emerging economies. We need to acknowledge the resilience of natural systems and their ability subsequently to recover once a plateau of economic stability has been reached. This has been the pattern over most of the developed world. Productivity and profitability are important prerequisites for environmental protection and enhancement. I acknowledge the need for sustained economic competitiveness to provide the very resources required for a high-quality environment.
President Bush, there does not need to be any contradiction between these two objectives. It is not jobs or the environment. Please come back on board Kyoto, and be sure you do not mortgage all our children's heritage. Environmental pollution, climate change, is no respecter of borders."@en1
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