Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-16-Speech-1-175"
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"en.20060116.18.1-175"2
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".
I shall make brief comments. I absolutely agree that climate change is one of the most serious, if not the most serious problem, which the world is facing today.
We therefore have a truly huge obligation, a huge duty, to address climate change. The European Union really is the global leader on this issue. We honestly are making an effort and we hope that we shall persuade countries which are not showing willing to cooperate, such as the United States, which we referred to earlier and which is presently emitting more carbon dioxide than any other country, to follow this path.
I am convinced that, in the not too distant future, all these countries, especially developed countries, will follow. Of course we also want the developing countries to contribute in their way, in accordance with the principle of the United Nations on joint but differentiated participation, to combating the greenhouse effect.
I honestly believe that with you, with your help, which we urgently need, we shall be able to help combat this major problem for the world as a whole.
Of course for the European Commission, and for me in particular, climate change, as I have repeatedly emphasised, is one of the main priorities.
Of course, we have been fighting all this time to achieve the objectives which we set at the beginning of the year in our communication, which the European Parliament also adopted and which made the relevant recommendations for winning the battle against climate change.
This communication was the main document which set out the relevant arguments and on the basis of which the overall debate was held which terminated in the Montreal agreement – and not just in Montreal, but also during the intermediate discussions at the European Council, at Gleneagles at the G8 summit, in Bonn and during other discussions held before Montreal.
It therefore shows how important the contribution of the European Union was, both with this communication and the various interim discussions at bilateral level which we held with countries such as India, China and other rapidly developing countries, such as Mexico and Brazil, which are countries that emit large quantities of carbon dioxide, and with the climate of confidence which we cultivated throughout this time so as to achieve this success.
Of course, our ambitions were much bigger – and are much bigger – but on the basis of the Treaties, as I said earlier, this was a success.
We still have a long way to go and I agree that already today we are experiencing climate change. There has already been a 0.7° Celsius rise in the temperature and many of the phenomena we see today are due to climate change.
As I said earlier, we are seeing various weather phenomena, such as hurricanes, prolonged droughts or floods in other parts of the world which are in keeping with scientists' predictions relating to climate change. Not all these incidents may be connected or we may not be able to connect them directly to climate change, but they come within scientists' general predictions.
Of course, the phenomenon we are seeing today, the melting of the glaciers, both in the Alps and the Arctic Circle, the possible change in direction of the Gulf Stream, the rise in sea levels and a series of other phenomena will have serious repercussions on life, health, the environment and the ecosystems of the whole of mankind, which will be all the greater in the very poor countries, which do not have the means to deal with these consequences."@en1
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