Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-16-Speech-2-395"
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"en.20081216.38.2-395"2
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"Mr President, the potential for carbon capture and storage technology to achieve vast reductions and abatement in CO
emissions into the atmosphere is something we simply must grasp. I have to say that the idea of storing CO
underground forever is not my ideal option. I would like us to move straight to a different age, one where our power comes from renewable, clean and green forms of energy. But we cannot ignore the reality of coal. China is getting 80% of its electricity from coal. It is soaring ahead with renewable energy programmes and, yet, it is also expanding its coal-fired power stations week in, week out.
In my own country there is a big argument about building one new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth. The CO
emissions from that one power station will be the equivalent of those saved by every single wind-farm we currently have in the country. People will say: why bother with all these renewables, why bother with all these other things if you are still building coal-fired power stations in this way?
We have to develop CCS. The International Energy Agency says that by 2050 it could be responsible for abating up to 50% of the emissions that would otherwise take place on a business-as-usual scenario.
Now our number one concern in dealing with this legislation has been to deal with the issue of safety. Some of those concerns may be easy to exaggerate. After all, CO
is natural: we breathe it in, we breathe it out. We pump an explosive gas like methane into our own homes, where we set light to it. So, by comparison, CO
needs to be put into perspective. But we have tried to address the issue of leakage in this report, making clear that it is absolutely unacceptable if there was a risk to human health.
We have tried to improve the regulation, introducing clarifications to avoid contradictions and to speed up the application process, while emphasising that Member States are ultimately in charge of their own destiny. They decide whether or not CO
will be stored on their territory.
The Commission’s initial proposals were good. I hope that Council, Commission and Parliament have collectively improved upon them. But there is not much point in storing CO
or making provisions for the storage of CO
if we are not capturing it in the first place. So we took on the challenge, over the past few months, of introducing a financial mechanism to drive forward construction of the demonstration projects promised by heads of government last year.
I have to say that at times it has felt like an uphill struggle. People were dubious about the proposal to use allowances from the New Entrant Reserve of the Emissions Trading Scheme. But we got there in the end, with the Council deciding last week to allocate 300 million allowances. How much that will raise depends on the carbon price. But I am told it could be anything from EUR 6 billion to EUR 9 billion of support for capital investment.
That is a major step forward – one of the real achievements of these negotiations. I think all my colleagues in this Chamber should be pleased that the proposal came initially from Parliament. It was on the Council’s agenda because we placed it there. The presidency took it and, if not with enthusiasm, it at least accepted that it offered a solution to a very real problem.
Let us now go forward. Let us see these demonstration projects put out to tender as soon as possible. Let us see construction begin. Let us test this technology and let us pray that it works."@en1
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"2"1
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