Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-24-Speech-2-066"
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"en.20091124.3.2-066"2
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"Madam President, last week some information was leaked: the Commission had begun an initiative, on the quiet and in collaboration with some Member States, to move towards a 30% cut in emissions right away. The argument is that the price of carbon dioxide could be kept reasonable – which is to say at a level that would promote measures to reduce emissions – if the cut were 30%. The big electricity producers, who have been lobbying hard, are delighted with the plan, which would increase the profits of listed energy companies and would, at the same time, make European industry vulnerable to carbon leakage.
I would, however, like to remind the Commission that, under the Emissions Trading Directive, the EU’s target of 20% for cuts in emissions will only change to 30% if other industrialised countries make ‘comparable reduction efforts’, and if the advanced developing countries have some obligations. Achieving a political agreement at Copenhagen will still not be enough. Nevertheless, a legally binding agreement will not be enough either before all the countries ratify it. Only after ratification will the EU be able to say whether the condition it imposed regarding comparable reduction efforts has been implemented.
Changing political consensus into a binding agreement is no mean feat, technically speaking. A legal agreement on global climate policy would be precisely worded and deal with hundreds of issues, with headings such as Quantitative Targets for Emission Cuts in the Industrialised Countries for 2020 and Beyond, Specific Emission Targets for the Developing Countries for 2020 and Beyond, Financial Aid for the Developing Countries from the Industrialised Countries, Technology Development and Transfer, and Sinks and their Accounting Rules. There are dozens of single issues in connection with all these areas, which the countries will need to reach mutual agreement on.
The main consideration, however, is that it will only be through a synchronous cut in emissions that we can guarantee an overall reduction, instead of simply moving them about from one place to another, doing more to increase total emissions. That is why the environmentally responsible policy is making reductions in the EU conditional on the efforts of others. Otherwise, Mr Verheugen’s ominous forecast that we will only be exporting pollution and importing unemployment might come true."@en1
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