Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-16-Speech-3-031"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20051116.4.3-031"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
".
Mrs President, there is now almost universal acceptance that climate change is a serious and an urgent problem. The IPCC predicts that global temperatures may rise by as much as 5.8°C by the year 2100. According to one insurance company, the estimated economic costs of global warming could double to USD 150 billion each year in the next 10 years, hitting insurers with USD 30-40 billion worth of claims. There is good evidence that the 2003 European heatwave was influenced by global warming and that, as Members will recall, resulted in 26 000 premature deaths, as well as costing USD 13.5 billion.
The UK Presidency has set out to create a fresh momentum in the wider international process in which the EU plays such a crucial role. That is why we put climate change on the agenda of our EU summits with China and India. These two countries are particularly important partners for the EU in tackling climate change. Both summits included useful bilateral discussions on energy security and efficiency.
A key element of the partnership with China is a new initiative on near-zero emissions for coal, with carbon capture and storage, to address the vital challenge of tackling the increasing greenhouse gas emissions from coal. We also agreed a new partnership with India. The EU-Russia summit too was an excellent chance to consider what experiences we can share with regard to the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, to ensure its mechanisms are up and running as soon as possible.
In September, for the first time, Ministers from the Agriculture Council met Environment Ministers to discuss the impacts of climate change on agriculture in the EU. We also put climate change on the agenda of the Energy, Transport and Competitiveness Councils.
All this activity is leading to the first meeting in December of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Montreal, where, under the Protocol, parties will begin discussions on the next period after 2012. Let me make it quite clear that the EU and the UK remain absolutely committed both to the Kyoto Protocol itself and to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. As our Prime Minister Tony Blair said this week at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in London, the world needs a framework with the necessary targets, sensitively and intelligently applied over the right timeframe, that takes us beyond 2012. Perhaps I could ask colleagues to take particular note of the use of the word ‘targets’, because the UK has repeatedly stated that formal agreements with targets are absolutely essential in any international climate change regime, not least because they give incentive and certainty to the business community.
The informal G8 process is also hugely important, but it is complementary. It is not, and was never intended to be, a substitute for the Kyoto Protocol or for the United Nations Convention. I hope the work we have done this year through both presidencies will in fact be built on at Montreal.
Montreal will primarily be the celebration of a massive achievement: the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. There were times when it looked as though that might never happen, but the EU continued doggedly to work for such an outcome, and now here we are, with the world’s only credible, binding international agreement on controlling greenhouse gas emissions.
The EU set out our negotiating position for Montreal at the October Environment Council. First, we want to agree the Marrakesh Accords – the decisions that will form the rulebook of the Protocol. Secondly, we want to agree a compliance mechanism to ensure that parties to the Protocol keep to its rules. Thirdly, we want to seek to improve the way the Kyoto mechanisms – and here I am talking mainly about the clean development mechanism – work. Emissions trading, the CDM and joint implementation are all crucial elements to the Protocol and will remain essential in the years to come.
Finally, the Montreal Conference will look to the future and begin to discuss what happens when the first Kyoto commitment period ends in 2012. This last issue is likely to be by far the most delicate, as well as the most important, element. There is no question but that we want to build on the Kyoto Protocol post-2012 and that we have to launch a discussion under Article 3(9) of that Protocol to consider future commitments of the EU along with other Kyoto parties. However, it is also quite clear that for a global climate change regime to be truly effective, we need broader participation than the Protocol currently offers. At Montreal we will be looking for pathways towards a framework post-2012 which builds on and learns from the Kyoto Protocol as it stands and can include as many countries as possible.
The EU will clearly have to back our political ambition for the Montreal Conference of the Parties with real evidence that we are taking a lead in tackling climate change. The Kyoto Protocol also stipulates that, by the end of 2005, parties must demonstrate their progress in meeting their Kyoto commitments. This will be the ideal time for the EU to reaffirm our commitment to Kyoto, to meeting our emission reduction targets and to our obligations to assist developing countries. In preparing for the conference, we are assembling data, facts and figures to show the practical application of our political commitment. We know that we need to do more and we all stand ready to do more.
Today’s debate here in Strasbourg will allow us to take stock of the current situation and offer us a further opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of the world that the EU takes this problem very seriously and is committed to delivering results. Together we have already achieved a great deal; we have shown leadership and made a real difference. We need to continue to do that and not falter as the environmental stakes get higher.
Those events and their associated price tags bring very close to home the reality of what unchecked climate change would mean for us. It is clear that the scale of a climate change problem is enormous and that it is pressing, and that is why the UK decided to make climate change a priority for our presidencies of both the G8 and the EU.
We will not see a resolution to the problem at Montreal, nor under the current UK Presidency of the EU. We need future presidencies – both of the EU and of the G8 – to carry on this work, keeping climate change high on their agendas and tackling the major threats it poses to our economies, our society and our environment. There are encouraging signs that the next G8 presidencies – Russia and Japan – fully intend to do so and I have every confidence in the EU’s continued determination to tackle this vital issue.
2005 has been a critical year for international climate change policy. The Kyoto Protocol has entered into force. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme is up and running and we are due, at the end of the year, to begin discussions on further action beyond 2012, something to which I will return.
The G8 represents only a small – albeit key – group of countries, but the progress we have made there will, I hope, have a major impact. The G8 summit discussions in July concluded with an ambitious communiqué. It included agreement from all members, including the United States, on the role of human activity in global warming and on the need for urgent action. There was also consensus on a package of actions to combat climate change through a diverse range of avenues: energy efficiency, cleaner power generation, research and development, financing of cleaner energy, managing the impacts of climate change, as well as combating illegal logging.
The G8 countries have engaged with the World Bank and other development banks to improve the harnessing of funding for clean technology and, crucially, they also agreed to begin a new dialogue between the G8 and other countries with significant energy needs on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development. The first meeting of that dialogue took place in London on 1 November. Mexico has offered to host a second meeting next year.
The Member States of the European Union were some of the first in the 1990s to recognise the dangers of global warming, the link to human activity and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As long ago as 1991 the Commission issued the first Community strategy aimed at limiting CO2 emissions and improving energy efficiency. In the light of the EU’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, it soon became clear that more needed to be done. So, in 2000 came the launch of the European climate change programme. Today the EU is taking the lead, for example in focusing on emissions from aviation, and we warmly welcome the Commission’s recent communication on reducing the climate change impacts of aviation. Its announcement of support for the inclusion of aviation emissions in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme is highly encouraging and we look forward to fostering progress in that area as a priority for our Presidency of the European Union.
Within Europe there is a clear recognition of the importance of energy efficiency in meeting the challenge posed by climate change and work is already under way to deliver energy efficiency savings throughout the Community. The energy services directive which we hope to agree by the end of the year is expected to provide a challenging first step, while the Commission’s Green Paper on energy efficiency published at the end of June should set the future blueprint for Europe’s energy efficiency strategy to 2020.
But despite all this work and effort, it is clear that emissions in the EU are not being reduced as quickly as we want and that urgent action is needed in all sectors, at both national and EU level. So I applaud the Commission’s decision to launch a new phase of the European climate change programme to look at what more can be done.
Alongside this, the Commission and Council are developing an EU medium- and long-term strategy for tackling climate change and will report on progress so far to the December European Council. Parliament’s input in this will be crucial, so the resolution that you have recently produced is an extremely valuable contribution to this process."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples