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Climate change rapporteur: "strict but feasible" pollution targets needed
Environment - 14-06-2007 - 12:49
Karl-Heinz Florenz: called for "European business card" on climate change
The EU needs to set "strict but feasible" targets on pollution as well as explaining clearly to other international polluters what it has done and is intending to do on climate change. These are the views of German Christian Democrat Karl-Heinz Florenz - Parliament's rapporteur for its new temporary committee on climate change. He predicts that Europe is on the verge of a industrial revolution with new technology. MEPs on the committee have been asked to formulate proposals on EU climate policy.
Speaking exclusively to the Parliament's website, we began by asking him what role the Parliament's new temporary committee on climate change could play.
K-HF: There is a lot of expertise in the Parliament spread over different committees. The main task of the temporary committee will be to pool this wealth of knowledge. The legislative committees, such as the environment committee, will fully remain in charge of the legislative work.
We actually do not have much time. The committee will work for one year, one and a half at the most. We are under time pressure because climate change currently doesn’t seem to be taking a break.
It is very important that we define now what I call our European "business card" (by this he means something the EU can present to other international polluters as a way of saying "this is what we have achieved" and "this is what we intend to achieve") – a business card that we present to the Americans, the Indians and the Chinese.
The sooner we do that, the better, so that European industries can do the research and develop technologies, filters, clean coal power stations, and cars. If the European car industry doesn’t build the cleanest cars in the world, it will cease to exist and others will build those cars of the future. The Chinese and the Indian people will have no other choice than driving clean cars if they don’t want to die due to pollution.
Post Kyoto: what next?
Turning to existing international agreements on climate change, the Kyoto protocol is due to expire in 2012 - we asked what he thought should replace it.
K-HF: Well firstly, maybe it doesn’t need to be called “Kyoto follow-up agreement”. There are a lot of sensitivities about this. What is clear is that the industry needs definitive figures for the period after Kyoto, reliability, because if you want to build a new power station you need to plan ahead.
Policy makers have to set strict, but feasible targets. There are a lot of examples where at first there was a "doomsday mood" when we came up with new environmental regulation and in the end things worked out just fine, and the legislation turned out to boost our exports.
A good example is the directive on car recycling and the regulation on electronic waste. You don’t see old cars and fridges in our forests anymore and China is actually using our legislation as a blue print for their own. This is a real success story.
The price of saving the planet
We then asked his opinion about the contribution that business can make and whether Europe will have paid a price to avert climate change.
K-HF: In some particular areas, climate change will of course cost money. But for example when it comes to heating, we have a clear win-win situation. One third of our CO2 emissions come from our homes.
I don’t just want to look at one single big smokestack but all small homes. At home, on my small farm, I have sought local expert advice and was thus able to save 72 tons CO2 per year. Similar measures are possible in every family home. This needs to be supported by governments. And the good thing is that the invested money stays in the region, unlike the money we spent on the oil for heating.
We have to see this as an opportunity. In my region, for example, they produce a foil that is very thin, 0.3 millimetres, it’s hardly visible, but if you stick it on windows, it prevents the heat of the sun from entering. In Southern countries, this could help to do away with consuming air conditioning. That is innovation. It is not enough to tell people to turn off the air conditioning; there must be a reason why you don’t need it.
We are on the verge of an industrial revolution. For example, there might be small scale wind turbines for every family home. These are the kind of things we need to promote. We have so many opportunities which we need to make use of. We need to use them in a way so that the young generation will say one day that we didn’t get it all entirely wrong.
REF.: 20070611STO07715