Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-29-Speech-3-031"
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"en.20001129.6.3-031"2
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"Madam President, thank you, Commissioner Wallström, for your intervention. I think the EU successfully kept its act together, apart perhaps from in the last critical hours. Clearly, however, there are many losers following a conference of this kind. I think that we, as politicians, have lost out because we have sent a very bad signal to a great many committed people by failing to reach an agreement.
Secondly, I think that the section of commerce and industry which looks seriously at this problem and which would like to have some ground rules has also lost out. Therefore, it is, of course, incredibly important for there to be another conference soon. I think the EU was right not to give way on carbon sinks. This is not just because of the difficulties of verification and measurement but also because more and more researchers maintain – whether rightly or wrongly, I do not know – that today’s carbon sinks may well be tomorrow’s carbon sources. Or, to put it another way: forests stop being carbon sinks and become carbon sources. If that is the case, then it would obviously be extremely risky to add this to the equation at the present stage, when it is still so difficult to come up with definitions. I should prefer to say, Commissioner, that, in the ongoing dialogue with the Americans, it would be better to be more generous when it comes to emissions trading
in general than to introduce something which is extremely difficult to substantiate on the basis purely of research.
I was a part of the parliamentary delegation. We had a meeting with a number of American Members of Congress. I was quite alarmed at the arrogance and ignorance shown by the Americans. I got the feeling that they do not want to ratify the Kyoto protocol under
circumstances. One conclusion I came to is that we need more in the way of transatlantic dialogue on these issues – not only dialogue between governments and the Commission but also, and especially, between Members of Congress. That is perhaps something which we in the European Parliament can help bring about.
Finally, a question: even if a conference in May were not to succeed, is the Commissioner prepared to go further, to be in the vanguard, take the lead and recommend ratification by the EU?"@en1
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