Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-16-Speech-3-040"
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"en.20051116.4.3-040"2
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".
Madam President, a decade ago there was much speculation about climate change, but today it is very much a reality as we see the future unfolding before our eyes. The Arctic people see it in disappearing Arctic ice; the shantytown dwellers of Latin America and southern Asia see it in lethal storms and floods; Europeans see it in disappearing glaciers, forest fires and fatal heatwaves. In Brazil this year, for example, while hurricanes thousands of miles away battered the United States and the Caribbean with water and wind, residents of a small fishing town deep in the Amazon region watched the lake on which they depend for food and transportation shrivel away in a year which saw the region’s worst drought in four decades: the result of warmer ocean water, which has also been blamed for one of the most violent hurricane seasons on record in the Gulf of Mexico.
As I travel to Montreal next month as part of the European delegation, I look forward to seeing the global players face the reality of this year and work together as partners in tackling this extremely important global problem.
The signing of the ratification protocol for Kyoto by some of the major players has been a much-welcomed event. The Kyoto Protocol is off life support because the Russian Federation ratified it. However, major players now need to be more proactive in convincing countries with the highest levels of pollution: the United States and developing countries.
I remain deeply concerned that the United States continues to choose to tackle the climate change issue through unilateral activities. Climate change needs to be dealt with as a global problem. If carbon dioxide is not reduced, the Arctic ice cover will disappear. That will affect the quality of life in particular of those living in coastal regions and island communities. That is a scientific fact, not a passionate policy comment on my part.
Ireland is much more energy efficient than it was a decade ago. I encourage other Member States to follow suit. Tackling climate change was never labelled as being easy, but complacency in dealing with it is far worse.
What is a fact, and what surprises many people, is that because of the level of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, we are already committed to a significant amount of global warming and rising sea levels. If we became a perfect pupil now in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, we would still suffer from past pollution, but the longer we wait to tackle greenhouse gas emissions in a serious manner, the more entrenched the commitment is.
Temperature rises have already been noted. The half-a-degree temperature rise is similar to that observed at the end to the twentieth century. However, what is more alarming is the projected sea-level rise, which is more than twice the three-inch rise that occurred during the latter part of the previous century. Those numbers do not take into account the fresh water from melting ice sheets and glaciers, which could at least double the sea-level rise caused by thermal expansion alone.
Scientists have claimed that water temperatures in the North Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico have been as much as 3.6 degrees higher than normal this year. That has helped to feed the hurricanes that have devastated the US Gulf coast and the Caribbean. It has also helped to generate the warmer-than-normal air currents that have poured into the Amazon basin and prevented rain clouds from forming. Greenpeace has warned that this year’s experience could be a sign of things to come if practices such as deforestation and emissions of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere do not stop.
By tackling climate change in a serious manner, we not only help to preserve our planet for our grandchildren and future generations, but we would also save them and ourselves monetary cost, given that the climate change costs incurred as we aim to protect disappearing species and habitats are very high.
Evolving players such as South Asia, Latin America and Africa require emission reduction policies that will not harm their economic development. Climate change policies thus need to be designed to contribute to economic growth in the developing countries."@en1
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