Climate committee: reduce meat consumption

Big success in today´s vote at the Climate Committee:
The excact wording here (text first in Swedish, then English).

GUE/NGL
Brussels, 02/12/2008

A report voted today by the European Parliament’s Temporary Committee on Climate Change, drawn up by Conservative MEP Karl Heinz Florenz, concludes the work of this committee by putting forward a series of recommendations for a future EU integrated policy on climate change.

Speaking after the vote, Roberto Musacchio (GUE/NGL, Italy),  Vice-Chair of the Committee, said he was satisfied with the report which he said stresses the importance of adopting sectoral targets on energy efficiency as well as using public procurement to support renewable energies. ”I am particularly satisfied that nuclear energy is not considered as an alternative or renewable energy contributing to the reduction of CO2 emissions,” he said.

Expressing his satisfaction that the Committee had approved a reduction in meat consumption, particularly in the industrialised world, Jens Holm (GUE/NGL, Sweden), shadow rapporteur for GUE/NGL, said that the meat industry was one of the ”world’s greatest climate villains. It’s almost historical to get such a wide support for the demand to reduce meat consumption”.

The Climate Committee also decided to sharpen the reduction target for GHGs in the EU by demanding reductions of about 25-40 percent by 2020 and of at least 80 percent by 2050. ”We in the GUE/NGL group would have preferred to get support for more stringent reduction targets, but this is a reasonable compromise. Now it is up to the EU to deliver,” he said.

The report also highlighted the fact that poor countries are hardest hit by climate change and demanded significant increases in financial support for work being done on climate issues in developing countries. ”It is the rich countries which have caused the climate problem and therefore they have to solve it. It is good that the committee clearly recognises the need for substantial increases in resources for the world’s poor,” MEP Holm said.

For his part, GUE/NGL MEP Dimitrios Papadimoulis said that the report adopted by the Temporary Committee on Climate Change establishes important guidelines for future EU policies and sets ambitious long-term and intermediary targets for the reduction of CO2 emissions. ”I am particularly pleased that the report explicitly asks the Council to come with a common position on the proposed directive on soil protection and desertification.”