Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-30-Speech-2-250"
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"en.20040330.9.2-250"2
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"Mr President, Mr Goodwill, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament has been intensively dealing with the problem of climate change for the past five years. Fortunately, our work is becoming increasingly more specific; we are now also taking real measures. On behalf of my group, I would like to state that we are generally satisfied with the amendments approved by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy. I would therefore like to thank Mr Goodwill very much for his work.
What we have before us is a balanced result. In the battle against climate change, emissions of fluorinated greenhouse gases must be reduced as much as possible. We therefore wholeheartedly support the committee in its attempts to tackle the biggest sources of emissions. These are refrigeration and air-conditioning installations, mobile air-conditioning installations and foam products.
Two things still require some attention. After much discussion, my group would like to be a little more flexible with regard to the gases in fire protection systems. The emissions from these are extremely low and are only released in the event of a fire. In our opinion, consumer safety is a very high priority. We would like to ban fluorinated greenhouse gases, but only in cases where this is actually possible and where there are alternatives.
A large proportion of emissions of fluorinated greenhouse gases stems from the use of air-conditioning in cars. We have paid a great deal of attention to this, and rightly so, and in this regard I would like to thank Mr Goodwill again for his willingness to compromise. Many people are not aware of the negative impact air-conditioning can have on the environment and our climate. The fact that the use of air-conditioning increases fuel consumption in the car is far more widely known. In many countries, including my country, the Netherlands, it is actually unnecessary to have or to use air-conditioning. It is different in southern countries. In view of the negative effects of the fluorinated greenhouse gases in air-conditioning, I would like to call for them to be phased out as soon as possible. I personally would rather see this by 2009 than by 2011.
What is certainly important is that we choose Article 175 as the legal basis. Member States must have the opportunity to take further-reaching measures, particularly in view of the geographical differences and the fact that air-conditioning is superfluous in northern countries. Member States must therefore have the opportunity to discourage air-conditioning in cars. Perhaps we should go even further in order to limit the installation of air-conditioning in cars. For example, the Commission could take a look at energy efficiency requirements for cars with all the on-board equipment switched on full, as these luxury accessories in particular cancel out any improvement in the energy efficiency of engines. That is definitely not a good example of sustainable development.
In short, we would like the result achieved by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy to be accepted by the plenary session, with some amendments."@en1
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