Blog
12.December 2007 - 05:16
From Bali – the nuisance must become part of the solution
Greetings from the Bali Climate Change Conference. I am a fixture of the UN climate change conferences, just like Satu Hassi is – at least in Buenos Aires, Montreal, Nairobi and now here in Bali we’ve both been, together with Satu, part of the European delegation. This year Riitta Myller joined our group as a first-timer so that the Finnish representatives outside the Parliament are now better known than ever before.
I didn’t get here until Wednesday, a day later than most of my colleagues, as the sea directive was being handled on Monday in the plenary session and I was the rapporteur of my group. Unlike my colleagues, I haven’t mastered the jetlag yet, but just now I feel quite fine. The tiredness comes and goes in waves and, naturally, the humid, 30 degree heat does not make it any easier. The time difference with Finland is some six hours and just in the difficult direction – to the east: in the morning it is difficult to get up, whereas in the evening one feels like staying up all night.
Of course, Bali is a nice and exotic place for a climate conference, but how wise was this choice really, one has to think about it a little more carefully. A very important aspect of the offer of climate change conferences are the so-called side events. These are, in other words, the various discussions and themed panels that are provided alongside the actual sessions. At the moment, they are not so popular, simply due to the heat. I am sure that next year in Poland the situation will be quite different – and perhaps then the delegation will not be as huge (??!) as it is now.
In my opinion, the most interesting thing here is the well-organised briefing sessions, provided to us MEPs on a daily basis by the Commission and the country holding the EU presidency. The presiding country this year is Portugal – last year, in addition to Commissioner Dimas, Finland’s Jan-Erik Enestam was telling us how the negotiations were going. Additionally, the day was filled with meeting various delegations or organisations.
Today also Al Gore, who spoke at the plenary session in the evening, was present,– and according to what I heard, he was not a cheap speaker by any means. He was also asked to speak to our Temporary Committee on Climate Change of the European Parliament, but the plan fell through due to fiscal problems: Gore would have charged some half a million dollars for his speech. We just could not do anything but gape. I really don’t know how much Gore charged the conference for his presentation. Hopefully this man has at least some kind of climate fund so that good things will be promoted.
I asked about emissions trading in the briefing session of the Commission and Council, since we are now awaiting a new revised version from the Commission next January. At the same time as I’ve harshly criticised the present form of emissions trading, I have to say that I am pretty much relying on its new version. I just hope that we will not be too disappointed.
In fact, emissions trading is an excellent idea and, if its present elements that distort competition, could be corrected or cut out, it could even be part of the solution, also in regard to the dilemma of how to involve the US in combating climate change again. The local emissions trading systems of the US would be hard to combine with the European system, if some have strict emission ceilings while others have less strict ones. On the other hand, if the basis were the sector-specific division of emission allowances, based on best practices, the trading could work quite justly. In the global economy, sector-specific solutions as the basis for emissions trading could be the only way to guarantee an equitable treatment for those who pollute least – luckily this is just what Vice President Verheugen stated right before the Bali Conference. It would be downright stupid to continue building up systems which “export polluting and import unemployment, isn’t that stupid”.
So, I’m now eagerly waiting for a renewed version. A colleague of mine came to thank me for my question when I was just writing this blog, and he confessed to having earlier disagreed with me on the emissions trading criticism but now time has shown that I was correct. I was the first one in the Parliament to start talking, for example, about the problems with windfall profits and carbon leakage, which the Commission denied completely at that time. They will not do it again, said my colleague.
This warmed my heart, even though I was already boiling in the sun.
Naturally, this would have been a very appropriate ending. But, since I’m not that naive, let’s translate this discussion into the language of politics. Of course I understood that he just didn’t show up to compliment me. Just like so many others, this gentleman wants to become the rapporteur of the Emissions Trading Directive and, with his comments, he clearly tried to hint that it would not be worth my while lobbying against this option. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t done it. At the same time, he’s naturally lobbying to the others that this task should not be assigned to me. His worry now is that the Commission has mentioned me as a possible rapporteur, because they are aware that I know the ETS’s (Emissions trading System) details very well and it is now high time to get some results before the 2009 elections. It is also the same year that the Commission will change.
Published: December 12, 2007
http://www.korhola.com/2007/12/balista-riesasta-pitaa-tehda-osa-ratkaisua/
Greetings from the Bali Climate Change Conference. I am a fixture of the UN climate change conferences, just like Satu Hassi is – at least in Buenos Aires, Montreal, Nairobi and now here in Bali we’ve both been, together with Satu, part of the European delegation. This year Riitta Myller joined our group as a first-timer so that the Finnish representatives outside the Parliament are now better known than ever before.
I didn’t get here until Wednesday, a day later than most of my colleagues, as the sea directive was being handled on Monday in the plenary session and I was the rapporteur of my group. Unlike my colleagues, I haven’t mastered the jetlag yet, but just now I feel quite fine. The tiredness comes and goes in waves and, naturally, the humid, 30 degree heat does not make it any easier. The time difference with Finland is some six hours and just in the difficult direction – to the east: in the morning it is difficult to get up, whereas in the evening one feels like staying up all night.
Of course, Bali is a nice and exotic place for a climate conference, but how wise was this choice really, one has to think about it a little more carefully. A very important aspect of the offer of climate change conferences are the so-called side events. These are, in other words, the various discussions and themed panels that are provided alongside the actual sessions. At the moment, they are not so popular, simply due to the heat. I am sure that next year in Poland the situation will be quite different – and perhaps then the delegation will not be as huge (??!) as it is now.
In my opinion, the most interesting thing here is the well-organised briefing sessions, provided to us MEPs on a daily basis by the Commission and the country holding the EU presidency. The presiding country this year is Portugal – last year, in addition to Commissioner Dimas, Finland’s Jan-Erik Enestam was telling us how the negotiations were going. Additionally, the day was filled with meeting various delegations or organisations.
Today also Al Gore, who spoke at the plenary session in the evening, was present,– and according to what I heard, he was not a cheap speaker by any means. He was also asked to speak to our Temporary Committee on Climate Change of the European Parliament, but the plan fell through due to fiscal problems: Gore would have charged some half a million dollars for his speech. We just could not do anything but gape. I really don’t know how much Gore charged the conference for his presentation. Hopefully this man has at least some kind of climate fund so that good things will be promoted.
I asked about emissions trading in the briefing session of the Commission and Council, since we are now awaiting a new revised version from the Commission next January. At the same time as I’ve harshly criticised the present form of emissions trading, I have to say that I am pretty much relying on its new version. I just hope that we will not be too disappointed.
In fact, emissions trading is an excellent idea and, if its present elements that distort competition, could be corrected or cut out, it could even be part of the solution, also in regard to the dilemma of how to involve the US in combating climate change again. The local emissions trading systems of the US would be hard to combine with the European system, if some have strict emission ceilings while others have less strict ones. On the other hand, if the basis were the sector-specific division of emission allowances, based on best practices, the trading could work quite justly. In the global economy, sector-specific solutions as the basis for emissions trading could be the only way to guarantee an equitable treatment for those who pollute least – luckily this is just what Vice President Verheugen stated right before the Bali Conference. It would be downright stupid to continue building up systems which “export polluting and import unemployment, isn’t that stupid”.
So, I’m now eagerly waiting for a renewed version. A colleague of mine came to thank me for my question when I was just writing this blog, and he confessed to having earlier disagreed with me on the emissions trading criticism but now time has shown that I was correct. I was the first one in the Parliament to start talking, for example, about the problems with windfall profits and carbon leakage, which the Commission denied completely at that time. They will not do it again, said my colleague.
This warmed my heart, even though I was already boiling in the sun.
Naturally, this would have been a very appropriate ending. But, since I’m not that naive, let’s translate this discussion into the language of politics. Of course I understood that he just didn’t show up to compliment me. Just like so many others, this gentleman wants to become the rapporteur of the Emissions Trading Directive and, with his comments, he clearly tried to hint that it would not be worth my while lobbying against this option. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t done it. At the same time, he’s naturally lobbying to the others that this task should not be assigned to me. His worry now is that the Commission has mentioned me as a possible rapporteur, because they are aware that I know the ETS’s (Emissions trading System) details very well and it is now high time to get some results before the 2009 elections. It is also the same year that the Commission will change.
Published: December 12, 2007
http://www.korhola.com/2007/12/balista-riesasta-pitaa-tehda-osa-ratkaisua/