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Climate change MEP Karl-Heinz Florenz responds to people's comments
Environment - 03-02-2009 - 16:57
Florenz: "We only have one planet. It's not that we have a spare one in the cellar"
Recommendations on how to alleviate the worst of climate change will be debated Wednesday morning. MEPs on Parliament's climate change committee have ended their work and are calling for cuts of 80% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Prior to the Wednesday debate we had a poll on this website. We put some comments we got to Parliament's climate change rapporteur, German EPP-ED member Karl-Heinz Florenz.
We put it to him that many of our readers were divided between wanting to rejuvenate the economy and save the planet.
Q. Mr Florenz, Pavlos from Greece wrote to us saying: "If our planet disappears, what will we do with the money?"Robin in Belgium believes that "the economy should really be first now." Who is right?
KHF: I think Pavlos is. We only have one planet. It's not that we have a spare one down in the cellar which we can resort to once we need it. And climate protection policy is only the tip of the iceberg.
We also have to think about whether we will have enough resources for our children and grandchildren? In the future, we will have to deal much more efficiently with oil, coal, gas, copper and lead. If we seize these opportunities, we can save the climate and be economically successful at the same time.
Q. Some of our readers criticize "going green" as costly. Marius from Lithuania has pointed to the financial and environmental cost of producing energy-efficient like cars or lightbulbs. What is your view on this?
KHF: Certainly manufacturing energy-efficient products will entail costs, but the crucial question is whether we achieve to turn these products into worldwide sales successes.
Citation
The Economic and job-related crisis did not happen because we overdid environmental policiesKarl-Heinz Florenz
If the Chinese and Indians only bought half as many cars as the Europeans and Americans did, we would be suffocating in CO2. Europe knows how to save energy. We will very soon have electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell cars. These new products we want to sell to the whole world.
Q. What about jobs? Burhan from Belgium writes that "green employment is needed". However, Stane from Slovenia maintains: "It will be difficult to abolish old, dirty technologies. They employ far too many people".
KHF: That is true indeed, but the economic and job-related crisis did not happen because we overdid environmental policies. This crisis happened because the bankers were incapable, because they did not manage other people's money properly. Now we may not blame environmental politics for that.
However, there are indeed many jobs in, for example, cement and steel production. Therefore, our foremost task must be to care for education, innovation and a change of mind. We have to invest our money into the education of young people. They are our hope.
Q. So you wouldn't agree with one reader who termed environmental policies and green efforts a "PR exercise"?
KHF: No, that is wrong. And if it was, it would be horrible because we are running out of resources. If we do not start saving the environment sustainably our children will have no raw material with which to heat their homes or to produce goods.
REF.: 20090202STO47928