Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-31-Speech-3-182"
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"en.20010131.9.3-182"2
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". – Mr President, this report concerns the proposed adoption by the European Union of the United States’ energy star programme as it applies to office and communication technology equipment. This, colleagues, is not the sexiest title on this week’s agenda, perhaps, but it is directly linked to the future of our planet and to the possibility of even more devastating weather events, mass movements of people and crop failure.
Our irresponsible and profligate use of energy, with its consequential emissions of C02 and other environmental hazards must stop. Ironically enough, it is in the United States, where the energy star scheme originated, that we have recently seen the absurd spectacle of power cuts in California, largely because of the incredible increase in the use of computers and other office equipment with the accompanying need for air-conditioning within a framework of quite bizarre and unwise deregulation. Things would have been even worse without the energy star programme.
This scheme, which is voluntary, was introduced in 1992 and is now very widespread. It has been officially adopted in Australia and Japan for example. Members may in fact have seen the energy star logo on computers bought in the EU, although this means nothing yet since the technology has to be specially activated, which is done only in the United States.
This evening we are discussing the draft regulation which will implement the US/EU agreement on which we shall vote in the next session. It is a voluntary scheme and it is hoped that between now and 2015 savings of 10 terawatt hours and 5 million tonnes of C02 emissions will be achieved in the EU through this scheme.
I now enter the world of science fiction and explain that to be energy-efficient, computers must go to sleep, but they must wake up instantly when they are required to do so. When they are asleep their electricity consumption is cut on average from 100 watts to 5 watts. Given the number of computers in homes, schools, workplaces, etc., you can see how the savings mount up from the good sleeping habits of those machines. Until now, the European Union has produced its own energy efficient standards, often mandatory and the European Parliament has taken seriously its responsibility as a co-legislator to see that such standards are sufficiently stringent. That is why there would be very serious reservations from Parliament about adopting this US energy star scheme if that were to be our only measure and especially if there were no provisions in the agreement for regular review of the results, with the objective, of course, of always being at the leading edge of the relevant technologies.
Luckily that is not the case however, and the Commission is to be given powers to negotiate improvements in the technical specifications. And it has been made quite clear to the US authorities in a side letter to the agreement that the European Parliament, which would have been a co-legislator with the Council for similar measures at European level, will be consulted by the Commission on matters concerning technical specifications.
In the amendments to my report, we make it clear that further measures are certainly needed, including the glaringly obvious one of switching the machines off sometimes and withdrawing particularly inefficient machines from the market, either voluntarily or, if necessary, with legislation.
I am quite sure that the Council will see the wisdom of these amendments and of the regular and earlier monitoring of the energy star scheme as one, but only one, component of our energy efficient action plan. We believe the current legal base is the correct one and we join the Commission in their suggestions.
As rapporteur, I would like to thank the Commission for their cooperation and help and of course thank my colleagues, especially Mrs Müller, who drafted a very useful opinion from the Environment Committee. We all hope that the energy star scheme is a success and we look forward to watching computers throughout Europe going to sleep at the correct time."@en1
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