Working in Europe for Everyone in Yorkshire and the Humber

Climate Change

The week before the Stern Report was published, I spent five days in Kenya, seeing not only how climate change is already with us, but how it is having the most profound effect on some of the world's poorest people. We visited the town of Kapenguria in the Kachileba constituency, where 82% of the population is classified as living below the Kenyan poverty line. Dire problems of aridity and drought cause major problems for the farmers who make up the majority of the poor.

Most of the people in the area are pastoralists, and there have always been occasional inter-tribal skirmishes. But climate change has brought drought, farming has become much harder and conflicts over scarce water and animals are on the increase. The heaviest price, as always, is borne by women and children. Cattle has always been used as a dowry. But where only a few years ago girls were marrying aged 16, fathers desperate for whatever animals they can keep to survive, now send their daughters to marry as young as 11. Girls are forced out of school and another Millennium Development Goal - to get more girls into education - is falling by the wayside.

What I learned in Kenya is that the poorest are paying the highest price for climate change and that all the positive developments are put at risk by our inaction. What better venue, then, for the recent world Climate Change Conference than Nairobi, the Kenyan capital? The conference agreed to negotiations on carbon emissions after the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012, a review of Kyoto and some financial and technical support for developing countries to deal with the effects of climate change. But as David Miliband put it; "the world community can make progress when it puts its mind to it, but… my goodness we really need to up the momentum".

After my trip, I know for certain that poverty will never be history unless we address climate change.

Linda

The European Commission have set up a website to encourage everyone to play their part. To find out more visit: http://ec.europa.eu/climat/home_en.htm.

So what can be done now?

In March 2007, government ministers agreed new targets as a framework for the next steps to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. Some of the resulting policy issues currently being debated in the Parliament are outlined below.

What ministers agreed:

A target of at least a 20% cut in carbon emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 (30% if other countries agree)
By 2020, at least 20% of the EU's energy needs should be met from renewable sources
More research into carbon capture technology
Energy efficiency targets
And - in the announcement that made the headlines - announced that energy efficient light bulbs should replace conventional bulbs by 2010

Latest Climate Change News

8th October 2008 - Linda welcomes climate change breakthrough
10th September 2008 - Labour Euro-MPs “answer the call” of climate change
9th July 2008 - Linda backs better biofuels
22nd May 2008 - MEP McAvan slams "crazy" biofuels scam
23rd January 2008 - Speaking out on new measures to tackle climate change

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The EU and Climate Change

During the last century, the average global temperature rose by 0.6°C.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that this will rise by a further 1.4 degrees to 5.8°C over the course of the next century. Sea levels are expected to rise by up to 88cm.

Predictions of sea level rises of three metres over the next 250 years would see Hull underwater and Doncaster by the sea. If both polar ice caps were to melt, sea levels may rise by some 14 metres above their current levels.

The EU accounts for 14% of the world’s total carbon emissions.

The central plank of the EU’s efforts to combat climate change is the Emissions Trading Scheme. The largest such scheme in the world, the ‘cap-and-trade’ scheme covers more than 11,400 large emitters of carbon in the power and heat generation industries and certain other energy-intensive sectors of the economy. These emitters, accounting for 45% of the EU’s total CO2 emissions, are given allowances by their governments to release a certain amount of carbon into the atmosphere. Those that produce less can sell their additional allowances. Those that emit more can either invest in ways of reducing their emissions or buy ‘spare capacity’ from other companies.

Last year, the European Parliament voted to introduce a similar scheme for air travel. Together, energy production and use and transport account for 80% of the EU’s total carbon emissions.

The EU has now acted to phase out fluorinated gases from fridges and car air conditioning systems. So-called F-gases have a global warming potential thousands of times that of carbon dioxide.

Under the first European Climate Change Programme, the EU has taken steps to encourage energy from renewable sources and made a voluntary agreement with car manufacturers to cut CO2 emissions by 25%.