Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-20-Speech-3-450"
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"en.20080220.19.3-450"2
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"Good evening. One of the key issues when we discuss scientific cooperation with Africa is how the African countries will be able to protect themselves against climate change. As the UN Climate Panel has found, Africa is perhaps the continent in the world that may be hit hardest by climate change. This is actually already happening here and now. Crops are being burnt. The desert is spreading. Lakes and streams are drying up, and climate refugees on the African continent can now be numbered in their millions.
Lastly, another example of these shortcomings is the so-called flexible mechanisms. Of course we in industrialised countries can transfer some of our climate responsibility to developing countries. The aim is, if it is interpreted lawfully, that we must transfer technology and environmental activity to developing countries. However, according to a new report which we received in the Committee on the Environment last year, less than 2% of CDM projects are in African countries. The majority represent projects which in fact are of no particularly great benefit.
What is the Commission’s view on the flexible mechanisms and CDM projects, the Clean Development Mechanism? Are you prepared to revise those mechanisms thoroughly as we in the European Parliament have demanded? How will Africa be able to take greater benefit from technology transfers in future?
Many of the conflicts that exist in Africa at present are a result of the pressure and tension produced by climate change. One of the greatest ironies of the climate problem is that it is those who pollute the least that are most affected.
Ethiopia, to take one example, emits 0.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide per inhabitant per year, whilst my own country, Sweden, emits more than 6 tonnes per person per year. The EU average is around 10 tonnes. Sweden therefore emits 60 times more, and the EU 100 times more, than Ethiopia, to take just one specific example.
Seen from this perspective, we in Europe obviously have a huge responsibility. On the one hand we must reduce our own emissions massively, whilst on the other we must do everything we can to help the developing countries to take action against climate change.
This evening we are debating how we can establish effective scientific cooperation with Africa. I think that we must ask ourselves, self-critically, here and now: are we really doing all we can to support African countries? Are we really doing all we can, for example, to transfer modern, environmentally-friendly technology and knowledge to African countries? When we negotiate trade agreements, do we pay most attention to our own businesses or do we pay most attention to African businesses that want to trade with us on fair terms? Unfortunately, I for one cannot give a positive answer to these questions. So there is much to be done.
What is the situation, for example, with our laws on intellectual property and patents? In November in our resolution prior to the Bali negotiations we in the European Parliament stated that ‘the European Parliament recognises that Intellectual Property Rights licensing fees in the area of clean technologies may constitute a barrier to the transfer of such technology to developing countries’.
Let me take an example: 75% of wind power technology is controlled by four companies in the world. Yes, just four companies in the whole world. Three of those companies are European. The fourth is from the United States. When many developing countries now want to develop wind power they must use old and unpatented technology. They simply cannot afford modern, environmentally-friendly technology.
Much of the modern technology is simply deadlocked by our own legislation. Of course this supports a minority of large enterprises that control the patents. But what benefit is this for Angola, Botswana or Rwanda?
I want a clear answer from the Commission this evening. Are you doing anything to make the laws on intellectual property and patents more flexible? What are you doing so that technology can be transferred more easily?"@en1
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