Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-25-Speech-3-378"
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"en.20061025.27.3-378"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the message that we are receiving from the world of science is becoming ever more serious: the more recent the study, the more serious the message from science is on accelerated climate change. We are approaching a threshold, past which major disasters are unavoidable. That is what British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett said and she went on to say we are heading for climate chaos. At the same time the economic analyses show that very ambitious emission reductions are very reasonable in terms of cost and they will of course be a lot cheaper than letting climate change run riot.
Public awareness of this is growing, reflected, for example, in the opinion expressed by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) that Europe must reduce its emissions by 75% by the middle of the century and it cannot wait about for the others to follow.
Even in the United States of America public opinion is changing. That is evident from the huge success of Al Gore’s film, long articles in the big newspapers on climate change and its possible solution, and, most recently, the latest issue of Scientific American on energy without coal.
In this situation what we really need is leadership on the part of the EU. In the United States too, those who desire responsible climate protection look to Europe, and what Europe does encourages them. We must be worthy of this trust. Neither can we be content in the context of international talks with waiting and wasting time. We have to draft our own constructive proposals on what the world should do after 2012.
Within Europe too, we have to make our own emission reduction commitments and take action in line with the aim to prevent the world from heating up by more than two degrees. We also need to implement our own commitments under Kyoto, and, with regard to that, the emissions trading system is very important. I urge the Commission to be strict. It is not enough that emissions are traded; emissions trading must also result in a reduction in emissions in the way described in the Kyoto Protocol.
Business also needs European leadership. So that it can invest wisely it needs long-term emission reduction targets. The wrong investments will become very expensive. The lifetime of a power plant is 40 years. Power plants that are hostile to the climate should no longer be built at all."@en1
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