Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans has warned that Europe could soon be lagging behind the USA and China if the continent doesn’t face up to the threat of climate change.
She criticised the public bickering between European governments about EU posts, the UK government in particular, saying that this was distracting from the real issues facing Europe and the world.
In recent weeks, there have been positive announcements from Barack Obama and from the Chinese government on tackling man-made climate change – but no similar progress from European governments.
Recently re-elected to the European Parliament for a fourth time, Jill Evans MEP said that Plaid Cymru wanted to see new ambitious but achievable and binding climate change targets set for Europe for both 2020 and 2030.
Jill:
“While national governments in Europe are bickering over political positions and power, Europe is dithering and starting to fall behind in the battle against climate change.
“In the USA, Barack Obama has said that he will regulate the dirtiest coal-fired power stations while China plans to set an absolute cap on carbon emissions, starting from 2016.
“In contrast, Europe is increasingly under-ambitious. The economic recovery is an opportunity for us to tackle climate change by refusing to adopt a ‘business-as-usual’ approach, but governments are more concerned with horse-trading for positions than dealing with climate problems that are already on our doorstep.
“Back in February, David Cameron said that money was no object when dealing with flooding in England. What he should have been saying is that money is no object in ensuring ambitious and achievable carbon emission targets through investment in the green economy and renewable energy.
“Plaid Cymru calls for new Europe wide climate change targets to be adopted and for worldwide action at next year’s key UN climate change conference in Paris.”
