Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-14-Speech-2-282"
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"en.20060214.27.2-282"2
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"Mr President, Mr Rübig, with regard to the Kyoto Protocol and climate protection, I can inform Parliament that, when asked at the World Economic Forum in Davos what he saw as the world's priorities over the coming years, the former US President Bill Clinton said that the top priority was climate protection. That might now sound rather audacious coming from an American, but it was the former US President who said it, and he did sign the Kyoto Protocol. As we know, though, Congress then did not ratify it.
I fully agree with you and with many others that climate protection is a top priority. It is a necessity, because the global climate is under threat. However, we in Europe need to bear in mind that we are currently responsible for around 14% of global CO2 emissions, and by 2050 the figure will be about 10%. In other words, currently around 86% and in future 90% of CO2 emissions come from elsewhere. It makes a big difference whether we in the European Union are going it pretty much alone or whether we at least have our partners in the USA – who are of course our competitors as well – on board. That is not foreseeable at the moment, though.
Another question, of course, is how we should deal with countries such as China and India, which have no obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. I expect that these countries will say – and this is quite understandable: 'you Europeans generate around 10 tonnes of CO2 per capita, the Americans around 20 tonnes, and we produce between one and two tonnes. First let us bring our industrial and other development up to your level, then we will contribute to climate protection'. Getting China, India and other developing and emerging economies on board as soon as possible and convincing them of our arguments is a very sensitive issue.
We in Europe should go a step further, but at the same time we need to bear our competitiveness in mind and protect the climate as cost-effectively as possible. Joint implementation is very valuable in that connection.
If we can invest in European countries, for example in the new Member States, and thus reduce CO2 emissions for less investment than would be possible in, for example, the EU-15 Member States, then we should go down that route, and this is laid down in the Kyoto Protocol. That in turn means that climate protection is of the utmost significance. At the same time, however, we are also aware that energy prices have an effect on competitiveness and thus on employment.
We are going in the right direction, and in the next few months we will find out how the second post-Kyoto phase will be implemented in the EU Member States and what the national allocation plans will look like. Trading in CO2 certificates has made a good start, and the prices are considerably higher than we expected – at one point there was talk of EUR 10 per tonne, and the most recent listing, as far as I know, was EUR 28, which is almost three times as much. If we are now going to tell European industry that it will be allocated less than in the past, then we will have to find some good arguments.
In the interests of employment in good old Europe, I would quite clearly advocate that we tread very, very carefully and softly when it comes to our energy-intensive economy and industry. With respect to the future of Kyoto, I am very much in favour of making progress and of an offensive approach, but this approach must not put any jobs at risk of being relocated from Europe to countries that still pay no attention at all to climate protection."@en1
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