Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-15-Speech-3-017"
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"en.19991215.3.3-017"2
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"Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, a policy on climate issues has been one of the main environmental concerns of the Finnish Presidency. I think it is important to bear in mind that a policy on climate issues will, I imagine, be one of the greatest challenges for the entire planet and all mankind in the next century. The European Parliament is quite right when it states in its resolution that the commitments that have been made up till now are still not sufficient to limit the rise in temperature to one and a half degrees a century: we need new commitments in addition to the present ones.
Nonetheless, it will be a hard job to realise the present commitments. Preparing for the COP 5 Conference in Bonn was an important issue for Finland. Generally speaking, the Union has also been satisfied with the results of COP 5. Progress was made in a good number of areas. In addition, an action programme was agreed on, which I believe will enable us to make the necessary decisions at the sixth conference (COP 6) of the parties to the agreement on climate, which is to be held next autumn in the Hague, to make the process of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol possible. At Community level, Finland has worked to integrate climate policy with other areas of policy by drafting, for example, environmental strategies in the areas of energy, transport and agriculture. We must remember that these strategies are only the first step in what will hopefully become an on-going process of implementing and developing climate strategies.
One of the most important decisions reached during the autumn was the commitment made at the Helsinki Summit by the Community and the Member States to ratify the Kyoto Protocol before the Rio+10 Conference, which is to be held in 2002, and that the Community should do everything required to make ratification possible. Finland has also been involved in a wide-ranging dialogue with NGOs and representatives of business. In our opinion, multilateral commitment to a policy on climate will, in the long term, guarantee optimum results.
Although I said that the decisions that have already been taken will enable us to achieve the results we need at the sixth conference of the parties to the agreement on climate to be held next autumn, there is still much work to be done. It is particularly important for the Union to build bridges with developing countries and try and find solutions that they also regard as fair: win-win solutions in which both development and the environment are winners. Important issues for developing countries include how to create facilities to make it possible for them to report on levels of emissions, the development of their facilities in general and technology transfer. In this we have to pay special attention to the poorest countries of all.
We still have much work to do, furthermore, to develop the rules of the Kyoto mechanisms. Important questions include how natural depressions and hollows relate to the Kyoto mechanisms and the so-called flexible ceiling, which the European Union has proposed. Next year, the EU must do all it can to find solutions that are as effective as possible for the environment and the reduction in emissions and which can be widely adopted so that an agreement on the rules for the Kyoto mechanisms and the rules on compliance with that agreement can be reached.
I consider one fundamental issue to be the fact that nuclear power cannot be accepted as a method to be applied in the CDM and Joint Implementation projects. The Ministers for the Environment that convened at COP 5 had very strong opinions on this, but it is obviously going to be an especially challenging task to arrest the trend in the Community’s own greenhouse gas emissions, which is rising at present, when it ought to be falling. We still need new measures throughout the Community and the Member States. For example, bringing in an environment tax would be a major achievement. The suggestions of the Council for an action programme and the proposal under consideration to develop a system for emissions trading within the Community are steps in the right direction."@en1
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