Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-10-Speech-4-051"
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"en.20080410.4.4-051"2
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"Mr President, I would like to thank all the speakers for their very important and interesting contributions, and when we finalise our white paper on adaptation we shall take into account what has been expressed today and what the resolution of the European Parliament is recommending.
Again concerning the cost, a few speakers mentioned the question of auctioning and how this will affect our energy-intensive industries or other sectors of the economy. I should like to clear up one misunderstanding to defuse this issue. The revenue that will be generated by auctioning will not go to the European Union’s or any other coffers, but will go to the ministries of finance of the Member States which will auction the allowances. This should be clearly understood. This money could be between EUR 30 billion and EUR 50 billion every year, and we have recommended – and I hope that the European Parliament will agree – that part of it should go to adaptation policies. So we have the funding ready if we have the political will to go ahead with accepting this principle that we earmark a certain amount of this EUR 30-50 billion per year to go to adaptation policies.
I would like to speak for longer, because this is a very big issue and many questions were asked, but I would like to thank you again for your contributions. We will continue to cooperate closely with you and the Temporary Committee on Climate Change in formulating our policies and working hard, especially during these two years, to achieve an international agreement in Copenhagen.
I would like to underline that, without the continued support of the European Parliament, most of our policies that are in place today would not have been adopted, and the leading role of the European Union in the world would not provide the hope that an international agreement will be achieved in Copenhagen in 2009.
It is our main objective to have an international agreement to fight climate change, and to adapt to changing climatic conditions, in which all the countries of the world will participate and especially the United States and other big emitters, because then the fight against climate change will be effective. Of course, the European Union’s efforts will not be enough, but we cannot hope to have an international agreement if we do not take active leadership regarding this.
I heard again today some doubts about science. I think this issue has more or less been dealt with. There is almost a consensus in science that climate change is anthropogenic: it is caused by human activities. There are a small number of scientists who think differently. Some people still think that the world is flat, but even in the United States that is not taken seriously any more.
Last week a report from the World Health Organisation underlined the impact on health caused by climatic conditions and changes in climate, and NASA warned us that climate change is happening faster than we thought. Therefore, relying on what science is telling us, we have to act.
Concerning cost: if we act later, we shall pay more; if we act now, we shall pay much less and we shall also avoid the irreversible impact of climate change on our planet. We have a duty to ourselves and to the next generations to leave the world in at least the same condition as we inherited it.
We also have a moral duty, which many Members stressed, towards those who have not contributed to the formation of the greenhouse phenomenon – the least-developed countries in the world, which not only have a very low income per capita but also have contributed only a very small fraction to the formation of this phenomenon.
Therefore adaptation, along with efforts for mitigation, is absolutely necessary, and we have to do that by helping the least-developed countries and also by taking the right measures in the European Union.
I heard various examples of what is happening right now, for example in the important issue of water. We have legislation – the Water Framework Directive – which deals with this very precious and scarce resource, but we also adopted very recently a communication on water scarcity and droughts, because this is becoming a very important and urgent problem that we have to deal with."@en1
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