Ausführliche Sitzungsberichte

Donnerstag, 28. November 2019 - Straßburg

9.4. Klima- und Umweltnotstand (RC-B9-0209/2019, B9-0209/2019, B9-0211/2019, B9-0212/2019, B9-0215/2019, B9-0216/2019, B9-0218/2019, B9-0220/2019)

Oral explanations of vote

  Billy Kelleher (Renew). – Madam President, I supported this motion, and it was, I think, an important debate that we had in the last number of weeks on this particular issue.

The fact of the matter is we can no longer deny the science. The science is there – it’s very evident. There is global warming. It has been identified because of the amount of carbon emissions, fossil-fuel burning and how we just exploit our planet, which are the real reasons why we have this emergency.

And we have to take, from time to time, the advice of younger generations. There are thousands of people in Ireland on every Friday – young students protesting, highlighting the deficiencies of effort on behalf of politicians and political leaders across the globe.

It is time for us now to accept that we have an emergency and accepting that to respond with an emergency in terms of developing policies that will immediately impact on saving the planet, saving the environment, saving the biodiversity and saving our oceans.

It has gone beyond whether or not it is an urgency or an emergency. It is very evident. It is what it is, and we must act now with policies that will address it.

  Rory Palmer (S&D). – Madam President, I don’t believe the resolution that we passed today to declare a climate emergency would have happened had it not been for the campaigning and the pressure of those thousands of young people in all parts of the world – those young people walking out of their schools and colleges as they did in Leicester a few weeks ago, when I was pleased to join them. But they’ve done that not to demand of us that we pass resolutions or adopt encouraging words. They’ve done that to demand real, meaningful, decisive action, and that’s what we must now deliver. That’s what the new Commission must deliver, that’s what our national governments must deliver, and it’s what we as a Parliament must ensure is delivered. Because if one thing is clear from those young people, from Greta Thunberg when she spoke to this Parliament a few months ago, words are not enough. They want action and they are right to demand that action of us.

  Claire Fox (NI). – Madam President, I voted against the climate and environmental emergency motion because I’m really concerned at the hyped-up anti-science scaremongering that’s terrifying young people, telling them that billions will die, that there’ll be a collapse of civilisation, a lot of the rhetoric coming out of Extinction Rebellion and echoed in the debate over the last few days. I think that the fact that we voted against an amendment today that said that we should be committed to bringing environmental subject back to rational discussion, and we rejected it, admits that actually we’re having an irrational discussion. This becomes advocacy and propaganda, rather than science. There’s no scientific evidence from the IPCC or anyone else about the extinction of humanity, and we should be very careful about claiming that anthropological climate changes cause floods and droughts, which we have been doing quite casually during the last few days. In fact, the IPCC says that such issues are probably caused by socio-economic conditions, and we forget socio-economic conditions too much and demand, in fact, as this Parliament has done, decarbonisation, which will lead to eco-austerity, massive price hikes in energy, and ordinary working people paying the cost for scaremongering and...

(The President cut off the speaker)

  Robert Rowland (NI). – Madam President, I’d just like to reiterate what my colleague said. I also rejected the COP24 resolution. I may not be an Economics Professor, but I do profess to understand economics. They also call it the dismal science, but when it comes to the climate emergency, I would describe the apocalyptic forecasts as nothing but science fiction. The adoption of these policies today, and the aim of carbon neutrality by 2050, is nothing short of reckless and the most extreme example of economic illiteracy I’ve ever seen. The fact that amendments were rejected demanding a full impact assessment shows rank indifference to the cost and practicality of aggressive climate policies.

One thing I can say for certain is that the impact of net zero makes the consequence of any form of Brexit look puny by comparison. Dieter Helm, Professor of Energy and Economics at Oxford University, was right when he said: ‘We should be honest that it is a huge industrial undertaking, and it will have significant cost. These are enormous industrial activities, there is nothing in history that looks like this outside of wartime.’

In my own country, our own Chancellor has put that cost at over one trillion pounds, or almost 2% of GDP per annum. It is an insane policy.

  Younous Omarjee (GUE/NGL). – Madame la Présidente, aujourd’hui, 28 novembre 2019, le Parlement européen décrète l’état d’urgence climatique et environnementale. C’est un moment symbolique et historique, et je suis fier, par mon vote, d’y avoir contribué.

L’Europe qui, depuis la révolution industrielle, a largement contribué à la catastrophe climatique se hisse à un devoir de responsabilité devant les peuples du monde, devant les espèces et devant les jeunes du monde qui nous somment d’agir maintenant. Nous devons donc agir maintenant pour que la vie reste possible sur Terre, pour l’espèce humaine et pour l’ensemble des espèces qui sont entrées dans une vague d’extinction inédite. Il n’est plus urgent d’attendre, il est urgent d’agir.