Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-05-Speech-4-170"
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"en.20010405.9.4-170"2
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".
Mr President, it is clear that, like Parliament, the Commission is extremely disappointed by recently announced rejection of the Kyoto Protocol by the United States.
As you know, we took the initiative of condemning this rejection. Mr Prodi and Mr Persson wrote to President Bush on 14 March to voice our indignation. Mrs Wallström and our Council colleagues spent some of this week in the United States with Mrs Wittman and Mr Armitage, who are the competent persons in the American administration.
We are not going to settle for these contacts, and we have also decided that this troika will hold talks with Canada and will initiate talks in the coming weeks with Russia, Iran, China and Japan. We have decided to do everything within our power to keep the Kyoto process on track.
Be that as it may, the American administration has confirmed its unwillingness and hence its refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. It has given no indication of the content of the recently announced re-examination of its policies on climate change or the date on which this information will be made public. The problem is very serious. The only good news, if you can call it that, is that, up to now, nobody has challenged the current state of scientific knowledge on climate change, which is an achievement, and the United States has indicated that it will continue to be involved in future international negotiations.
Mrs Wallström clearly pointed out to our American counterparts that abandoning the Protocol would be a mistake. To start from scratch would not only be a waste of time but would also risk breaking the fragile balance that the Protocol had succeeded in establishing between the industrialised world, which had greatly contributed to the problem, and developing countries whose emissions per inhabitant were far below those of industrialised nations.
At the same time, the European Union declared its intention to continue negotiations within the Kyoto framework, despite the fact that the United States had dropped out. The Protocol could come into effect if the European Union, the applicant countries, Russia and Japan ratified it. Like Mr de Roo, we believe that the impact of the Protocol will be lessened because of the absence of the biggest polluter on the planet, but we cannot, and we must not, wait for the Americans.
So we have clearly reaffirmed our commitment to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in 2002 at the latest and, to this end, preparations are under way. This requires us to adopt a consistent approach, which means continuing our efforts to combat climate change. The European programme on climate change that Mrs González mentioned is now in existence. It is under development. We are going to make every effort to move the Protocol forward. We will ratify it and we will ensure that we are consistent.
You can count on the Commission to continue to fulfil its role as the driving force in matters of climate change, which Mrs Isler-Béguin called for. We will also continue to ensure that the European Union is the driving force at an international level both in terms imparting our values to other countries and also in terms of our own implementation strategy. Like Mrs Myller, I am in no doubt that the two issues will feature on the agenda of the summit between the United States and Europe, which will take place in Gothenburg during the next European Council which, as you know, will be mainly devoted to the environment. This is therefore an important date for us all."@en1
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