This morning the Committee adopted by a large majority a resolution entitled ‘No Turning Back’ which will be submitted to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. The resolution spells out the EESC’s disappointment with the lack of progress in the negotiations and insists that the EU should honour its original commitment of a 30% reduction by 2020 and its recently-endorsed long-term target of reducing emissions by 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. You can read the resolution here. The Committee went on to stage a set-piece thematic debate on Compenhagne and the climate change issue together with Jöran Hägglund, Swedish Secretary of State for Energy (on behalf of the Swedish Presidency), MEP Jo Leinen, President of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee, and Olivier Deleuze, Director of the United Nations’ Environment Programme. It was an excellent debate. Everybody is agreed on what needs to be done, so why isn’t it happening? I record here just one ‘soundbite’, said by Jo Leinen: ‘Europe has established peace between man and nations; now it must establish peace between man and nature.’
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