Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 1 April 1998 - Strasbourg

11. Methane emissions .

  President . – The next item is the report (A4‐0120/98) by Mr Marset Campos on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the communication from the Commission to the Council and to the European Parliament on the strategy for reducing methane emissions (COM(96)0557 – C4‐0001/97)

  Marset Campos (GUE/NGL), rapporteur. – (ES) Madam President, Commissioner, the Commission"s initiative on the reduction of methane emissions at European level is essentially correct and positive. However, on the one hand, it is somewhat late given the commitments made and our support, demonstrated in Maastricht and Amsterdam, to lead our society towards a sustainable model. And, on the other hand, it suffers from inadequacies in terms of the first‐hand detailed studies on this issue at European level which could lay the foundations for specific, global proposals adjusted to the actual situation. Finally, therefore, it is lacking in all the proposals it puts forward.

We in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection have approved this report with the very positive incorporation of the contributions made by both the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. The Commission"s communication is appropriate and positive since methane gas is the largest contributor to the “greenhouse effect’ after carbon dioxide. Its impact is 62 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. In addition, it affects the ozone layer because of the fact that it reacts with hydroxyl radicals. Added to this, methane emissions increase by 1 % a year – almost 500 teragrammes per year. Since the average life of methane in the atmosphere is relatively short and varies between 8 and 17 years, it is more effective to combine the fight to reduce methane emissions, either through a decrease in emissions or combustion.

This initiative is somewhat tardy, since other industrialized countries – such as the United States, Australia and Canada – have effectively adopted global strategies intended to reduce emissions.

Nevertheless, we believe that the initiative is also insufficient since we do not have a detailed study in Europe on this issue – there has been one on the basis of national studies, but never a specific one –, and there are inadequacies in the proposals. I would like to look at several of them.

In general, the initiative is positive since it sets out all the undertakings given under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Conference, the Fifth framework action programme on the environment “Towards Sustainability’, as well as the Environment Council of 1994 and the demands of the Council"s Ad Hoc Group on Climate, in accordance with the Berlin Mandate. However, some points need to be added which we believe to be important.

Firstly, we must urgently adopt an ambitious package of legislative, economic and social recommendations.

Secondly, we believe that we should establish a European Climate Agency to coordinate all measures, including those proposed here.

Thirdly, we consider it essential to provide greater access to gas pipelines for the most important sources of methane already mentioned.

Fourthly, we should incorporate three specific issues into the proposal. As regards agriculture, we must study European rice cultivation; we must also look at livestock farming in a more realistic way to ensure that our livestock industry is not harmed in comparison to other livestock industries; and we must thus give more consideration to the CAP in terms of its environmental impact. In terms of landfill sites, the proposal must be included in our European energy policy, and as regards the use of energy, we must improve the control of leakages from all types of gas pipelines and from coalmines.

There is another aspect which is worth mentioning briefly: the improvement of research. This is important because we believe that we are missing the train in terms of providing instruments and materials in a growing market, precisely on this issue of controlling methane emissions.

We should also provide economic assistance, tax exemptions and all sorts of benefits for those European companies which are achieving a reduction of methane emissions abroad.

And finally, we need to increase public awareness regarding these issues so that they also get involved and participate in an active way and that we are not merely dependent on legislative measures.

  Linkohr (PSE), deputizing for the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy. – (DE) Madam President, I would first like to thank Mr Marset Campos for his really excellent report and also the recommendations which he has presented to Parliament. But I would also like to express praise for the Commission, because the communication which it has presented to us is excellent and of much help for the debate. Thirdly, if you will allow me, I would like to excuse my colleague Ulrich Stockmann, who has prepared an opinion for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy. I am speaking in his place. Unfortunately he has had to undergo an operation and cannot be here today.

To get to the point: First, it occurs to me that we are living in a time of great surprises, because who would have thought ten or twenty years ago that such a commonplace molecule as methane would be the subject of an evening sitting of the European Parliament? This puts me in a reflective mood, because it is quite possible that in future we shall discover that other commonplace things are also vitally important.

Research exists to discover things which we do not know. It is possible that in future we shall make some unpleasant discoveries which force us to reflect.

Second, I would like to note that when I talk about research, we should really do research not just with the purpose of solving problems, however important that is, but also to discover the unknown. This is something unknown which we have actually discovered. The problem which faces us in this context is that methane, like other gases which affect climate, has a global impact, but that we have no global decision centre. I am therefore especially thankful that the idea of a Climate Agency, a European or perhaps even better an international Climate Agency, is really being considered. I know that at first such a thing raises fears of a new bureaucracy. But I ask, in a world in which there is no proper decision centre, where can global management be done if not in new institutions which we set up? We must do the calculations. We must submit a global report, we must discuss in the parliaments and governments, and we must also act globally.

At the same time, and that is the paradox in this situation, we are not just dealing with a global subject, but with a decentralized one, because the sources from which the methane comes are distributed very diffusely over the whole world. Mr Marset Campos has indicated what these sources are. At the same time, we also need decentralized action, enlightenment, we need to educate the people who now participate directly or indirectly in the human production of methane.

There are many examples, which are also listed in the Commission's communication. But that brings me to the question of how these examples can be acted upon? What is the motive which causes people to carry out such action or to invest money in it? Not everyone reads the Commission's communications. Not everyone reads the decisions of the European Parliament, and even if people read them, I am not yet sure that they are personally motivated by them. What moves people? There must be a material reason for taking action.

That brings us to the question: How is it financed? What is the personal profit, in the spheres of agriculture and waste disposal, of acting differently from the way we have had to act until now? I would like us to put the emphasis on that when we discuss climate in future. How can the good advice that we give, the good analyses, actually be put into effect? That is in fact the central question, to which until now we have basically given no answer. We always say that the Commission must make a proposal to us, the Commission has the right to make proposals. It is a splendid right, but sometimes also an unpleasant duty, because the answers are not always immediately to hand.

Nevertheless we hope that in the future the Commission will make proposals to us in accordance with the maxim “We must do it’ rather than “We could do it, we ought to do it’, and that it also explains to us how it is to be financed. That would be my request to the Commission. It is expressed in the decision. I thank you for listening to me.

  Jackson (PPE). – Madam President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report and to thank him for the work he has put in on it. On behalf of my group we welcome the report, although we have reservations over one or two of the paragraphs, particularly the recommendation on the European Climate Agency and paragraph 5. I do not think we will be supporting that. We do not see any need to set up a separate agency and I do not imagine the Commission does either, although we noticed that Mrs Bjerregaard is not gracing us with her presence tonight.

The largest sources of methane in the environment are defined by the report and by the Commission document as livestock and landfill. I wish Mr Flynn all success in pursuing Agenda 2000, which is the only way, as far as I can see, that we are going to reduce the methane emissions from livestock in the end. I want to concentrate very briefly on this issue of landfill. The paper emphasizes the possibility of high levels of methane elimination. I wish whoever had written this in the Commission had had a word with whoever was writing the directive on landfill.

When this point was taken up by the Committee on the Environment, I as rapporteur was told by various officials in the Commission that 90 % or at any rate 100 % elimination of methane emissions via energy recovery systems or flaring was virtually impossible. Flaring might perhaps produce very high levels of methane capture but anything else, they said, could not go above about 70 %. They were extremely pessimistic. I now read in the Commission's document – pages 12 and 13 of the English text – ’Several options can reduce methane emissions from landfills, some of them by up to 90 %.’ That was denied by the Commission again and again in the Committee on the Environment, and I think that is very regrettable.

What will now happen is that we have two Community instruments fighting against each other. The landfill directive will now make it very uneconomic for landfill operators to invest in methane recovery systems because the Commission's own instrument demands of them that they put less biodegradable waste into landfill progressively over a period up to 2010. The objectives set out in this strategy are therefore combatted by a proposal from the Commission. I think that is regrettable and I do not suppose Mr Flynn will have anything very constructive to say about it, but I thought I would put it on the record.

  Flynn, Member of the Commission. – I should like to thank Mr Marset Campos and all those who contributed to the debate.

The aim of the communication of the Commission is to examine the problems related to atmospheric methane emissions and to identify the main emission sources and sinks, to review some cost‐effective mechanisms for reducing these emissions and to provide some options that could be used in a Community greenhouse gas emission reduction strategy.

The options focus on three sectors: agriculture, waste and energy. The communication also provides a first response. In the light of the Kyoto Agreement that aimed at reducing a basket of six greenhouse gases, including methane, by 8 % by the year 20082012, it will be necessary to examine further the contribution that methane emission reduction can make to the Community's overall target.

The report by Mr Marset Campos and the accompanying motion for a resolution show that he is fully in tune with the concerns that are set out in the Commission's communication. Moreover, the debate on this communication could not have come at a better time since, following the agreement on the protocol at Kyoto, the Commission is now very actively engaged in further reflections on how best to implement the commitments it has made with respect to emission reduction. Reductions in methane, as the second most important greenhouse gas, will certainly be an important consideration in the Community's post‐Kyoto strategy.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 . Given that the major proportion of methane is man‐made it is vital for these emissions to be restricted and reduced. All of those who have contributed made that point very forcefully.

In 1990 agriculture accounted for 45 %, waste for 32 % and energy for 23 % of European Union methane emissions. Calculations in the communication show that by 2010 a reduction of up to 15 %, compared with 1990, is feasible based on current policies. But a reduction of up to some 40 % or more in the same period is estimated to be the maximum technically feasible, assuming that significant policy changes are made. The Commission can therefore largely share the views set out by you, Mr Marset Campos, in your report for addressing the emissions of methane.

On the motion for a resolution itself I would like to make a few specific points. On paragraph 2: the Commission has made some further studies, aimed at obtaining more detailed information on methane emissions. Specifically as regards methane hydrates I can inform you that the Director‐General for Research has an ongoing project on this particular topic. This will be very welcome news to you.

On paragraph 3: the Commission is in the process of drawing up a strategy to meet its Kyoto commitment of reducing its emissions of six greenhouse gases by 8 % by 2008‐2012 compared with 1990. Mr Linkohr will be very anxious to have that kind of measurement achieved. That is our aim. The scope for reducing methane emissions will be an important consideration in this strategy. That is the point you make.

On paragraph 5: the Commission takes note of Parliament's wish to see a European climate agency as a means of coordinating public and private climate protection. I note the difference of opinion on both sides of the House as far as this particular recommendation is concerned. It is an interesting idea. I say to Mrs Jackson, who makes the point very well, that there are a number of implications that need further study in this regard.

On paragraph 9: the Commission recognizes that gas leakage from old pipelines – a point made specifically by the rapporteur – in the former countries of the Soviet Union is an important source of methane emissions. The deployment of European Union funds for repairs to these pipelines would certainly bring environmental benefit. Such actions would have to be considered in the overall framework in so far as the overall priorities are concerned and the availability of money.

On paragraph 21: the Commission certainly subscribes to the view that greater public awareness is essential if emission reductions are to be achieved. This effort needs to be taken not only at Community level but also at national and local levels if it is to be really effective.

I welcome the contributions that have been made. Even though my colleague Mrs Bjerregaard is not here, she can rest assured that I will bring the matters raised by you to her attention.

  President . – The debate is closed.

The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.