Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-16-Speech-3-037"
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"en.20051116.4.3-037"2
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".
Madam President, I should like to thank the Commission and Council for their statements. I have to say though that I do not share Mrs Beckett’s upbeat assessment of how the European Union is doing, despite the British Government’s pledge to make climate change a priority for its Presidency. Progress on the ground has been very disappointing. Hearing the G8 communiqué on climate change being called ambitious stretches the English language almost to breaking point. If the British Presidency is genuinely going to show international leadership on this subject, then it has to get its own house in order first.
Earlier this year, we commissioned a report from the Association for the Conservation of Energy to assess how well this government has been implementing existing European laws on reducing fossil-fuel use. Their findings made clear that this is a government which has delayed implementation of the directive on the energy performance of buildings, demanded an increase in the UK’s level of CO2 emissions permitted under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, failed to set binding targets for energy-demand reduction under the energy services directive, and failed to promote small-scale combined heat and power plants in line with the cogeneration directive.
This is why the Council should take particular notice of the European Parliament’s report on climate change, which has been expertly drafted by Anders Wijkman. There they will find a genuinely bold and ambitious call to action. In particular, the report demands strong emission reductions at home, starting with 20% to 30% domestic reductions in the EU by 2020, increasing to between 60% and 80% by 2050. It calls for the goal to make Europe the most energy-efficient economy in the world by setting targets for annual reduction in energy of the order of 2.5% to 3% and for a robust strategy for Montreal. And, in our amendment, the Greens are calling on the EU to ensure a formal mandate and timetable for negotiating future climate commitments with a time limit for achieving agreement at the end of 2008.
I want to end with two quick questions for the Council. First, what is its view on contraction and convergence as a framework for future action? Second, alongside the inclusion of aviation in the emissions trading scheme, will the Council propose instruments in parallel to tackle the full climate impact of aviation since, as we know, the Emissions Trading Scheme will not cover emissions that are not CO2 related?"@en1
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