Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-10-Speech-1-049"
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"en.20050110.12.1-049"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, I can readily endorse what you, Commissioner, have said just now. I believe that, all things taken into consideration, we had a successful conference, even though we did not perhaps come away having got the figures we wanted or having quite achieved our objective. At this point, I would like to express my gratitude again to the Dutch President-in-Office of the Council, who – assisted by your efforts, Commissioner – really did weld these three diverse European institutions into a team, with the result that Europe will in future be able to play an important global role not only through the euro, but also in the fields of environmental and climate policy. On this issue, I see us as not only leading, but also as determining direction. What we are aiming for is to be able to share in decisions about the ways in which we achieve our objectives, both in Europe and the world.
A few weeks ago, the Environment Agency in Copenhagen made it quite clear that we, with the instruments at our disposal, are on the right track, and you have just spoken about implementation. It was therefore logical that, in Buenos Aires, our three institutions influenced decisions on what happens after 2012, which will mark the tenth anniversary of Kyoto, for our industry needs data with which it can calculate if it is to be able to put its post-2012 investments on a legal basis. For that reason it is important that, in this House too, we should take further steps to bring us closer to the goals we have set ourselves.
Not only, of course, is that a task for industry in Europe and around the world, but we must also muster the courage to extend this both to travel and transport and to domestic fuel. I am well aware that this will not go down at all well politically speaking, but if, in future, it is to be industry alone that implements the Kyoto targets, the costs for industry, both in Europe and around the world, will be immense. We need other shoulders to share these burdens.
It follows, Commissioner, that you were right to mention Europe’s energy-saving measures. You are right to want greater energy efficiency, and we must also, of course, be judicious in promoting renewable energies. This is very much after my own heart, and I hope we will make progress in this matter.
Buenos Aires did, of course, have its darker aspects, and I, as a self-confessed friend of America, found the Americans’ truly destructive approach painful and very disappointing. Yet there is hope too – perhaps not in the American Government, but instead in ten of the American States, which have set out to pursue a greenhouse initiative quite separately from Washington, and there are signs of really hopeful developments on the border with Canada and elsewhere. I would even go as far as to say that, where transport policy is concerned, Europe has something to learn from states such as California. In the United States, too, I believe, democracy from the bottom up will get things moving in this area, and that is something I can only support.
So let me again extend warm thanks to Commissioner Dimas and to Mr Van Geel, the President-in-Office of the Council, for putting Europe’s weight into the balance. The fact that the scales did not then tip the way we wanted was not our problem. We will keep up the fight, though, firm in the conviction that we are ploughing the right furrow, an example that I, being a farmer myself, am happy to use.
Thank you for your patience, Mr President."@en1
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