A welcome for the Bali Climate Change Conference outcome, with regrets that it could not go further

"The most important political result", said Committee Chair Guido Sacconi (PES, IT), "is that we have reached an agreement" which includes "a roadmap and a timetable" for an international treaty by 2009. Although the text includes "no direct reference to reduction targets", noted the Chair, "all countries, developed and developing alike, are now called upon to take mitigation measures". Moreover, he concluded, the final Bali text addresses many of the EP’s concerns, such as deforestation, technology transfer and aid for developing countries. Lena Ek (ALDE, SE) picked up on the last of these issues. "We now have to see to it", she said, "that developing countries can combine the fight against poverty with the fight against climate change".  

 

"The EU was able to set an example at Bali", said rapporteur Karl-Heinz Florenz (EPP-ED, DE). Reaching consensus among 180-plus delegations is "always difficult", he said: "Things could have turned out much worse." Finally, referring to the United States’ much criticised negotiating position at Bali, he added: "Some elements of the US barricade are still there - but we’ve dismantled most of it".  

 

Satu Hassi (Greens/EFA, FI), who was rapporteur for the EP’s resolution ahead of the Bali conference, agreed. The result of the negotiations, she said, "is a very remarkable victory for EU diplomacy", even if, "the destination is not as clear as we would have wished." Although "we didn’t achieve our explicit aims", argued Riitta Myller (PES, FI), noting that "no binding action is expected of industrial sectors or of countries (…) what is important is that we have set the wheels in motion". According to Avril Doyle (EPP-ED, IE), "Politics is the art of possible and we got all that was possible".

 

 

 

17/12/2007
Temporary Committee on Climate Change
In the chair : Guido Sacconi (PES, IT)

 

REF.: 20071217IPR15661