LONDON’S Green MEP Jean Lambert has called on the EU to show global ‘climate leadership’ in a message to mark World Environment Day.
Jean was recently re-elected for her fourth term by Londoners allowing her to mark her 16th World Environment Day as a Green MEP, which she described as “the annual occasion for us to take stock of recent progress made protecting our fragile environment – and to focus our attention on the action we’ll be taking in future.”
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Jean used her annal statement to highlight the challenges world leaders will face next year when they meet in Paris to discuss a global climate change response plan, to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
She argued that leaders may be able to save their citizens from the worst effects of climate change but cautioned: “If that’s going to happen we’ll need a major economic and political bloc to show some leadership on the issue: perhaps making bigger sacrifices than it expects of smaller nations and groups of countries.”
“The EU can adopt that role and, from a promising starting point – one of falling emissions and a stronger policy – can broker the international agreement we need to stop climate change in its tracks”
The Green MEP also used the opportunity to highlight the successes made in Europe so far in cutting emissions – but warned that more action is still needed.
“By some accounts we’ve made good progress. According to the European Environment Agency, emissions from the EU fell to their lowest level on record in 2012 – putting the EU well on track to achieve its own target of reducing them by 20% on 1990 levels by 2020.
“But much of that is as a result of the switch from generating electricity from burning coal to burning gas – and really we need to be using less energy in the first place, and generating what we do need from renewable sources.
“Of course the potential is there: the EU’s climate change plan for 2030 should be insisting on strict targets for energy conservation and renewable energy generation. Then, perhaps, instead of giving fracking firms a license to drill under our homes, and allowing developers to build energy-inefficient homes, the Government would be requiring better home energy efficiency measures – and more renewable energy.
“The Greens have been pushing on the EU to do exactly that: calling for it to adopt strict targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 60% by 2030 – in fact cuts of more like 90% will be needed – and to require large-scale energy conservation and more renewable energy generation (it already hit 70% in Germany during one recent weekend) as the way to achieve them. I’m not holding my breath though – leaks of the European Commission view on the future of energy in the EU suggest we just need to import gas from somewhere other than Russia –not that we need to use significantly less of it at all.”
To read Jean’s full statement please click here