Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-28-Speech-3-254"
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"en.20071128.24.3-254"2
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Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is quite an important report just before the Bali Conference.
We are aware that international trade is developing at twice the speed of gross world product. This means it is causing growth in the transport industry, one of the most prolific producers of greenhouse gases. It is also enabling the relocation of production, which can be good in terms of using workforces and applying wage regulations, but, given that it takes no account whatsoever of the cost of greenhouse gases produced by this division of labour, it may accelerate the production of greenhouse gases and climate change.
To give you just one set of figures: ships, which carry 40 times more freight than planes, produce only twice as much greenhouse gas, but we still use planes to transport our goods to optimise the production cycle. I therefore feel that, further to the Stern Report and the four reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we should be aware that it is worth waiting half a day or even three more days for a product to arrive at its destination, rather than destroying our climate at a price the Stern Report estimates as 5 000 billion dollars.
Beyond this comment, the report makes an attempt to open up certain avenues. Obviously there are certain avenues relating to transport. We are pleased with the recent vote on the addition of the aviation industry to the European quota system. The report encourages reflection on industrial organisation to reduce the geographic scale of production chains – producing in closer proximity to the end user – and makes a number of proposals in relation to trade in environmental commodities.
What we are proposing, within the context of the WTO and the bilateral or bi-regional agreements – in other words, all the agreements we are currently negotiating – is to prioritise the assessment of the effects on climate change within the assessment made by these agreements of the environmental effects. We also suggest prioritising a considerable reduction in all tariff and non-tariff barriers – and here we are thinking about royalties in particular – that hinder trade in own goods and services which are the ones that can reduce the production of greenhouse gases.
All this must evidently be carried out within the most multilateral context, with the WTO if possible, in the absence of any bi-regional agreements currently being negotiated by Europe. We cannot, however, rule out the possibility that, after 2012, in the initial post-Kyoto phase, mankind will not have reached a unanimous agreement on the fight against climate change. In this case, Europe’s decision to lead the fight against climate change will definitely hit some of its sectors. It will not hit all of them. In many cases, being the leader of the fight against climate change provides a competitive edge. In some cases, and here I am thinking specifically of the cement industry, this could pose enormous problems and could even lead to cement tourism. In that case, when all the possibilities of multilateral agreements have been exhausted, we suggest adopting the GATT’s Article 20, in other words, border adjustment taxes to restore fair competition.
This, ladies and gentlemen, forms the basis of my proposals."@en1
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