Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-24-Speech-4-118"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20021024.5.4-118"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, this is a question about the Eighth Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol dealing with the reduction of CO2 emissions. Is an urgent matter because the New Delhi Conference, to which the question refers, is now beginning.
The European Parliament, and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy in particular, are very concerned that we should keep the Kyoto momentum going. In the European Union all is really not well, because some of the Member States that have ratified Kyoto are in the process of increasing their emissions of CO2, notably Spain.
We have adopted a number of directives tending to decrease CO2 emissions, and the Commission has put forward a very useful programme showing what it has done and what it intends to do. We are particularly interested in the proposals on monitoring mechanisms, which are likely to come forward soon.
I want to ask three things. Firstly, how important is the New Delhi Conference? The Commissioner would say that it is very important. If so, then my next question is why is she here and is she planning to go? I am sure that if she is not planning to go, it is not a symptom of the downgrading of the status of the conference. We simply want to know what is likely to happen at New Delhi. We have heard conflicting rumours.
Secondly, it would be interesting to hear how the Commission thinks other countries could be encouraged to participate in the Kyoto process. For example, I recently met with the Australian Ambassador to the European Union. Australia is not a party to Kyoto and is clearly not planning to become one. Australia might not have major CO2 emissions, but it could lead the way in South East Asia – a very important area where increasing industrialisation is increasing those emissions.
Thirdly, we should sort out what the role of MEPs is when they attend such conferences. In the past, my colleagues have had increasingly uncomfortable experiences attending these conferences, for example the Johannesburg Conference on Sustainable Development. The Commission is always extremely helpful and briefs MEPs as much as possible, but our delegations are not part of the meetings held by the EU delegation as such. We cannot understand why we cannot be observers at that process. It is absurd for the representatives of the people of Europe to travel halfway round the world only to be spectators at a conference where the people negotiating on their behalf are not directly elected on a European mandate. We would like to see this changed so that we are at least given observer status in EU meetings at such conferences."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples