Brussels, 28/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - When invited by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) to a debate on civil society's involvement in the debate on climate, Nicolas Hulot, the French president's special envoy on the protection of the planet, called on Wednesday 27 November for a new European governance for a forward-looking climate policy. “We are in a complex crisis. We go from crisis to crisis. Crisis has become a permanent state. It is not that the will is lacking but there is something inherently wrong structurally as we are at a specific moment when the short- and long-term stakes have come face to face. Power is exerted in the multiplication of individual interests, more in reaction than in forward-looking” (our translation throughout), said Hulot.
According to Hulot, the EESC must be the long-term chamber for providing legislative and executive support in combining short- and long-term challenges. “The Warsaw climate agreement is far from creating the conditions for success. We continue to grow used to the ticking of time bombs. Unless that changes, an incredible economic bomb will explode on our economies. France, for 2015, needs the work and support of the EESC, and I have told Mr Barroso that France needs Europe to show clear ambition on the climate”, Hulot said. Henri Malosse, EESC President, took up: “In Parliament, during the debate on CO2 from cars, I almost thought I was at the Auto Show! Things are going haywire. I appreciate the reflection made by Nicolas Hulot on governance. One must distinguish short-term from long-term - we must think of the general interest. I urge reform of EESC so that it becomes the long-term assembly, the anti-lobby assembly”, he told the press. (AN/transl.jl)