Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-10-Speech-4-015"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"2002-10-10"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Greenhouse gas emission allowance trading2
dcterms:Language	"en"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.20021010.1.4-015"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2002-10-10-Speech-4-0162
lpv:speaker	lp:Chris Davies2
lpv:spoken text	"Mr President, a few weeks ago we returned from the Johannesburg Summit with the demands ringing in our ears that fine words should be turned into real action in the knowledge that Europe's pledges were being greeted with cynicism by journalists and the public. Yet if those same critics look to the issue of climate change they will find that such cynicism is unwarranted. From the beginning, the EU has led from the front. It confounded the cynics by securing agreement for implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and by pushing the US and its head-in-the-sand administration into the sidelines. We now see words being turned into action, with an emissions trading scheme which may well prove the basis for meeting up to 50% of the reductions we have pledged to achieve. I first read about emissions trading and about harnessing market forces to encourage industry to meet environmental objectives a decade or so ago in pressure group magazines. Now those ideas, then so easily dismissed as crazy and impractical, are being given positive form. I commend the Commission for its draft directive. In many ways, however, it is a timid document and thanks to the work of our rapporteur we have all-party agreement to press for it to be made more ambitious. Liberal Democrats in the Parliament will be joining in supporting a range of measures to broaden its scope, to extend it to include additional industrial sectors and require it to include other global warming gases in addition to CO2. Personally, I absolutely accept the need for a cap in allowances in each Member State although I acknowledge that some of my colleagues in my group are concerned that the requirements being placed upon their nations by the burden-sharing agreement are already onerous. We have a lot to learn. That is why I am pleased that Parliament will today vote to give a temporary opt-out to those emission-trading schemes already established. I am not convinced that the British scheme provides the basis for long-term development. It is a different scheme in concept and application from the Commission's proposal, and we should be able to learn and benefit from it in the long term. After the successful conclusion of the Kyoto conference in Bonn, the Commissioner told the press that we could now tell our grandchildren that we did something to tackle the problem of climate change. All of us, Commissioners, Ministers, and parliamentarians want to be able to endorse those words. It will not be easy. There are some understandable national concerns but also some narrow, commercial interests wishing to dilute these measures. We must keep our eyes on the long term and the enormity of the challenge. If we do not take action now, we turn our back on the very future of the planet."@en1
lpv:spokenAs	member; Delegation to the EU-Cyprus Joint Parliamentary Committee (2002-02-07--2004-04-30)3 unknown; Liberal Democrat Party (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 substitute; PETI (2002-01-17--2004-07-19)3 member; ELDR (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 member; Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy (2002-01-17--2004-07-19)3
lpv:unclassifiedMetadata	"Davies (ELDR )."1

Named graphs describing this resource:

The resource appears as object in 2 triples

Context graph