Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-10-Speech-1-056"
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"en.20050110.12.1-056"2
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".
Mr President, over the past years, this House has held many a debate on the need for climate policy. Next month, the Kyoto Protocol will actually take effect, and that is why it is useful to look back at the decisions of the past few years. It strikes me that climate policy is receiving less attention. It is becoming increasingly difficult to gain a majority for necessary measures. The reason for this, in my view, is that we notice little of climate change, and that the negative impact will be felt most acutely in remote countries. Some people also labour under the assumption that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will affect economic growth.
I should like to draw Members’ attention to a study by the IIASA, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, based in Laxenburg, Austria. The scientists involved in that study demonstrated that climate policy can be adopted in a much more cost-effective way, provided that policy for the improvement of air quality is linked to climate policy. In that way, net costs are greatly reduced, but we should also consider the regulation of gases other than CO2. To be effective, therefore, a policy need not be expensive.
I should also like to take this opportunity to draw the Commission’s attention to problems involving the emission trading system. The directive has been interpreted in very different ways, which has resulted in potentially major problems. For example, in a number of countries, the chemical industry remained outside of the scope of the directive. That gave other Member States a reason to exclude their chemical industries from its scope in order to avoid distortion of competition.
In addition, in certain Member States, penalties incurred by businesses when they exceed their emission quota are tax-deductible. Once again, there is no level playing field within the internal market. I should like to hear from Commissioner Dimas whether he is aware of this and whether a change to the directive can be proposed in order to outlaw these practices. Also, in some Member States, the industry has received state support. In my own Member State, the Netherlands, the national government has spent EUR 600 million on buying emission allowances abroad, as a result of which industry was given a smaller reduction. I should like to hear the Commissioner’s response to this as well.
When the directive was discussed, two of my amendments were adopted in this House, which should have prevented these problems from arising. I now have to conclude that the problems occurred all the same. Our climate policy should aim to improve the quality of our environment. That is what we have agreed upon and that is what we should keep to. We do not own our planet; we are merely temporary occupants."@en1
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