Brussels, 10/09/2007 (Agence Europe) - Inaugurating the first thematic session of the European Parliament's temporary committee on 10 September in Brussels, the committee expressed a firm will to hear from experts in order to add to its contribution to the future EU climate policy and bring its weight to bear in the upcoming international post-Kyoto negotiations in the United Nations (Bali 3-14 December). The Chair of the committee, Guido Sacconi (PES, Italy), presented this outcome of the session to the press ahead of the start of discussions on the theme “Climate impact in various global warming scenarios” (EUROPE 9497).
“Our temporary committee was created at the end of May to define the profile of our work programme. The mandate decided in plenary was a generic one. We have decided to proceed on the basis of thematic sessions. There will be six of these up to March next year. At that point we will discuss the report which our rapporteur Karl-Heinz Florenz (EPP-ED, Germany) is drawing up. Today is in some ways our first official sortie”, said Guido Sacconi. “Assessing the impact of climate change according to whether we act a little, badly or a lot”, is the job assigned to the temporary committee. “From there, policy should decide what remains to be done to fight more intensively and effectively against a phenomenon which is no longer contested”, the chairman added. The next session, which will be held on 4 October, will be devoted to the international framework for combating climate change beyond 2012. In the view of Karl-Heinz Florenz, the questions to be asked are as follows: what can be done, how can we act, how can we adapt to climate change, how can we reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and how can we invest in new technologies? And by inviting in “experts with huge reputations in Germany”, such as Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and by consulting the German federal government, the temporary committee is creating “the best possible reserves to draw on”.
The main speaker at the thematic session, Mr Schellnhuber (who advised Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, and has spoken before the relevant committee of the US House of Congress in Washington), welcomed the fact that the signals from across the Atlantic are “of a kind which could change the debate” and allow “the USA to get on the bandwagon”. He also expressed the hope that the Parliament temporary committee would become a permanent one and “work in conjunction with the US Congress extraordinary committee”. Mr Florenz conceded that for the moment attempts at contact with the American authorities had failed, but he is unwilling to admit defeat. Speaking to the temporary committee, the German professor chose to “speak about the consequences of climate change and the fact that it is a dangerous change”. By this he means the great risks, the probability of which cannot be quantified, but which, if they should occur, will be irreversible, such as the impact of the destruction of Amazonian rainforests on the entire American sub-continent, the impact of the deregulation of the monsoon system on the Indian sub-continent, the melting of the ice-caps in Greenland and Western Antarctica, and the impact of melting Himalayan glaciers which feed all the great rivers in Asia. Paying homage to the pioneering role played by the EU and the ambitious objective set by the European Council in March (20% of energy production from renewable sources by 2020) and saluting Germany, which has just set an objective of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40%, the professor stressed how necessary it is to convince other partners - primarily emerging countries - as Europe cannot combat global warming alone. His plea for improvements to energy efficiency, a shift towards renewable energy, and the capture and storage of CO2 is entirely in line with the objectives of the temporary committee, which wants to work within the Parliament on an integrated and more consistent approach to climate change solutions, conducting discussions with various Parliamentary committees and externally with other international actors. (an)