Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-15-Speech-2-549-000"
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"en.20111115.32.2-549-000"2
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"Mr President, Ms Maćkowiak-Pandera, Ms Hedegaard, ladies and gentlemen, this week, the European Parliament is submitting a resolution which includes comprehensive proposals on combating global climate change. Mr President, I know that you are committed to overcoming climate change and it would, of course, be good if you could come with the parliamentary delegation to Durban. However, I understand the constraints you are under here in the House with regard to the 2012 budget. Nevertheless, a strong delegation will be going to Durban ready to exert pressure and to use its lobbying skills, so that the process of combating climate change does not come to a halt and so that we can continue to make progress.
I would like to thank the sponsors from the five groups who have drawn up this resolution. There was a broad consensus in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety about what should now be done and we had the support of the Committee on Development and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy. Parliament has clear ideas about what we need to achieve in the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
We have no time to lose. The extreme weather events in 2011 alone and the melting of the glaciers and icebergs show that climate change is well under way. This is why we need to make substantial progress at the COP 17. Parliament’s goal remains the same: a legally binding instrument for all states in the UNFCCC or a global climate agreement, if you want to call it that. We will not be able to achieve this in Durban, but we need to establish further milestones on the road to a global climate agreement. This is primarily about meeting the promises and the undertakings which were made last year in Cancún. I will only mention the mechanism for technology transfer from rich northern countries to poorer southern ones and the institutions which will put in place the necessary measures to allow us to adapt to climate change.
However, there are other open issues which we can hopefully resolve in Durban. One of these concerns closing the gigatonne gap. In Cancún, everyone agreed that we want to limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, but the commitments that are already on the table are not sufficient. We will end up with an increase of 3.5 or 4 degrees Celsius, which is much too much, as we all know. Therefore, we need to understand how the gigatonne gap can be closed on the basis of common but differing responsibilities for stabilising the earth’s atmosphere.
We in Parliament are of the opinion that greenhouse gas emissions will peak in 2015 and this is a very ambitious goal. However, the scientists are telling us that we have to reach this point during this decade. We know that by 2050, we must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by around 50%, which is a huge task.
In Durban, the focus is likely to be on the Kyoto Protocol. We must prevent a gap from occurring between the first commitment period and a further second commitment period. Therefore, we need a solution for the period after 2012 and Parliament is calling on the EU to give its clear support to a second commitment period. We know that we do not have many partners, but they include Switzerland and Norway, together with Australia and New Zealand. I believe that with effective climate change diplomacy, we can achieve a critical mass which will make it worthwhile to implement Kyoto II and, at the same time and most importantly, to force the emerging countries and also the USA to commit to a timetable involving everyone. The idea is that we will succeed in implementing an overarching climate agreement in 2015.
I would like to mention an issue that we are all aware of: the funding for combating global climate change. We hope that we can establish a Green Climate Fund in Durban, but we need to know who will manage it, who can become a member, how it will work and where the funding will come from. Parliament has made a number of suggestions including the income from emissions trading, taxes on aviation and shipping and the financial transaction tax, if it is imposed.
I shall be brief. We must not use the economic crisis as an excuse for doing nothing. The message that comes out of Durban must make it clear that we cannot allow climate change to overcome the human race. Instead, the human race must have the determination to overcome climate change. That is the message that the European Parliament is taking to South Africa."@en1
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