Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-24-Speech-4-027"
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"en.20080424.5.4-027"2
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"Mr President, yesterday, in this Parliament, I was questioned by a 16-year-old high-school student, who asked me, 'Is Europe prepared to make great sacrifices to save the planet?'. This young student was very worried about climate change and was asking us how far we could go. It was an expression of the distress felt by idealistic young people who expect a lot of us.
Well, we have market-based instruments that have been put in place: the Community system for the exchange of greenhouse gas emission quotas, and the 'Eurovignette' directive in the transport sector. These instruments have certain advantages because they set a value on environmental costs and help towards the achievement of environmental targets, at a lower cost, and they encourage businesses to make a longer-term commitment, which ultimately sustains employment. These instruments can help to reduce the damaging effects that environmental taxes could have on competitiveness in some sectors.
The promotion of sustainable development and the efforts to combat climate change should not be just a deterrent, through taxes and charges, but also an incentive, by facilitating a quicker transition to virtuous and eco-friendly behaviour. Everyone has to make the effort; that is why environmental costs need to be internalised.
It must also be stressed that environmental taxes should not be regarded as a way of increasing tax revenue, but as a means of preventing all harmful pollution and damage to the environment, at a reasonable cost.
Finally, in future debates on the 'energy-climate' package in the European Parliament, we shall have to give serious consideration to putting in place a border adjustment instrument, which will in particular help avoid any carbon leaks. We need to fulfil the obligation to reduce CO
emissions, whilst preserving economic competitiveness. In that connection, I emphasise the importance of the 'carbon' tax. That is often a taboo subject, but I still think it is worthwhile and should be considered."@en1
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"2"1
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