Bali-bound MEPs

The European Parliament is sending 19 MEPs to Bali, all of whom are full or substitute members of its temporary committee on climate change. Most are also members of the environment committee while two serve on the industry, research and energy committee.

To prepare for the Bali meeting, the Parliament adopted a resolution last week (15 November). The resolution said that the conference should stick to the goal of limiting the average global temperature increase to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. This would require reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050. The resolution, which was approved with 398 votes for, 29 against and 63 abstaining, also calls for binding targets for all industrialised countries, fair and proportionate targets for emerging economies, and a global cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions based on a "fair and proportionate" allocation of quotas.

Speaking in Strasbourg last week, Spanish centre-right MEP Alejo Vidal-Quadras, who is leading the delegation, said that its goal was to support the Council of Ministers and the European Commission in Bali to prepare for a post-2012 agreement to succeed the Kyoto protocol. As well as having bilateral meetings with other delegations, business organisations and non-governmental organisations, the group is planning two initiatives for the Bali meeting. The first is a round table of parliamentarians on global carbon markets. Vidal-Quadras said that the round table would focus on the policy framework for market-based solutions to tackling the problem of climate change including initiatives involving representatives from developing countries. Second, MEPs will view local projects related to climate change involving damage to coral reefs and mangrove swamps.

German centre-right MEP Karl-Heinz Florenz stressed the importance for the EU of developing cutting-edge environmental technologies which the Union could then sell to the rest of the world. Florenz said that he had just returned from China where he had seen one of the most modern gas turbine generators which had been built by a US company. "The industry in the US has woken up to these issues," he said. "Environmental protection is an important economic challenge," Florenz said.

Finnish Green MEP Satu Hassi said that how to deal with rising emissions in developing countries was "the biggest challenge to global diplomacy".

Asked to comment on the decision by the Commission to delay until after the Bali meeting a package of measures on how to implement the target of a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, Vidal-Quadras said: "Burden-sharing is a difficult political problem which will be hard to solve in Council." He said that it was an "intelligent measure" by the Commission to delay the package because "going to Bali in the middle of a difficult discussion could weaken the EU’s position". He added that there was only a short delay of a few weeks.

Hassi said that while it would have been wonderful to have had the package before Bali the most important message for the EU was the decision taken by the European Council in March to cut emissions by 20% by 2020, even without a global climate change agreement. She pointed out that the EU continued to take important initiatives on tackling climate change such as including aviation in the emissions trading scheme.

Italian Socialist MEP Guido Sacconi, chairman of the temporary committee on climate change, said that the burden sharing package should not be delayed again. "We’ve lost a month and we don’t have much time left in this parliament," he said, referring to the end of the current legislative mandate in June 2009.

Who is going?

MEP, group, country

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, EPP-ED, Spain

Miroslav Ouzký, EPP-ED, Czech Republic

Guido Sacconi, PES, Italy

Johannes Blokland, IND-DEM, Netherlands

Satu Hassi, Greens/EFA, Finland

Dan Jørgensen, PES, Denmark

Roberto Musacchio, EUL/NGL, Italy

Liam Aylward, UEN, Ireland

Rebecca Harms, Greens/EFA, Germany

Dorette Corbey, PES, Netherlands

Chris Davies, ALDE, UK

Lena Ek, ALDE, Sweden

Elisa Ferreira, PSE, Portugal

Karl-Heinz Florenz, EPP-ED, Germany

Anders Wijkman, EPP-ED, Sweden

Matthias Groote, PES, Germany

Eija-Riita Korhola, EPP-ED, Finland

Riita Myller, PES, Finland

Maria Sornosa Martínez, PES, Spain

The European Parliament is sending 19 MEPs to Bali, all of whom are full or substitute members of its temporary committee on climate change. Most are also members of the environment committee while two serve on the industry, research and energy committee.