Brussels, 05/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - On her visit to Australia, the country with the highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions per head of population of all the developed countries, Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action, on 5 September hailed the Australian government's programme for a clean energy future as “a step in the right direction” and called on the country to join the “family” of countries which have adopted legislation bringing in a system based on the market, as South Korea and New Zealand have done, as California is in the process of doing and as China is planning to do in order to take part in the carbon market. But as well as this, she pleaded for concrete progress to be made in Durban (COP 17, end of this year), speaking to Greg Corbet, the Australian minister for climate change and energy efficiency, NGOs and the press.
“In the EU we are trying to secure that Durban can take new steps forward. We know how challenging that is going to be. Unfortunately, there are many countries which are perfectly happy with what we did in Cancun. But when the leaders said in Copenhagen they wanted to stabilise 2 degrees increase in global temperatures we think that we should also take the next steps, actually delivering what is required to achieve this target”, said Hedegaard. She argued that investing in the fight against climate change is a “moral and economic imperative”; it is investing in “a change that we must make, whatever happens”, she added, convinced that “the world can only face up to climate change if it works together. We have to have an international agreement”. In the Commission's view, the new emerging economies must not only get on board, but “tell us when they will make commitments at international leve”". (A.N./transl.fl)