The European Parliament adopted by 618 votes to 45 with 25 abstentions, a resolution in response to the Commission’s communication on building a Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) between the European Union and poor developing countries most vulnerable to climate change.
The own-initiative report had been tabled for consideration in plenary by Anders WIJKMAN (EPP-ED, SE) on behalf of the Committee on Development.
Although Parliament welcomes the Commission’s initiative, it calls on it to clarify further the distinct added value of the alliance. According to MEPs, the coordination and cooperation with other main actors must be an integral part of the GCCA's agenda, so as to ensure optimal complementarity among initiatives.
Climate change and development: Parliament calls on the EU to place climate change at the core of its development cooperation policy. The alliance should take concrete measures to address coherence between, on one hand, the impact of climate change on development, including EU agriculture, trade and fisheries policies and, on the other hand, problems relating to export subsidies, such as tied aid, debt burden, export credits and commercial use of food aid, forced privatisation and liberalisation of vital economic sectors.
Noting that efforts to combat climate change need to be based not only on political impetus but also on civil society, in both developed and developing countries, Parliament considers that public information campaigns should be launched and education programmes in schools and universities adopted both to provide citizens with analyses and evaluations of the state of climate change and to propose appropriate responses, especially in terms of changing lifestyles in order to reduce emissions.
The Commission is called upon to ensure that the alliance’s planned research on adaptation in developing countries has a clear “bottom-up” perspective, is directed towards the poor and most vulnerable, guided by the needs of local communities and carried out in cooperation with the people concerned. Parliament emphasises the importance of results from adaptation research being communicated to its target groups through accessible media channels.
Financing: MEPs stress that Member States must take a much greater responsibility for the funding of and alignment of their development activities with the alliance. They consider the EUR 60 million committed to the GCCA so far to be woefully inadequate and call on the Commission to establish a long-term financing goal for the GCCA of at least EUR 2 billion annually by 2010 and EUR 5-10 billion annually by 2020.
The Commission is invited to urgently propose what measures to use to scale up EU financial support for climate change and development, ensuring the best possible coordination and complementarity with existing initiatives. The Commission should increase immediate funding for the GCCA, which might initially be achieved, as a matter of urgency, through the
Thematic Program “Environment and Sustainable Management of Natural Resources, including Energy” (ENRTP), which falls under the DCI (Development Cooperation Instrument) as well as the 10th EDF.
MEPs call on the Commission and Member States to agree to earmark at least 25% of expected revenues from auctioning within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) in the next trading period to funding of the GCCA and other climate change measures in developing countries, including efforts to protect forests and reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
New funds: the Parliament stresses that, if climate change is to be taken seriously, new funding must be made available through different budget lines and new financing sources, such as humanitarian funds in response to climate-related catastrophes, Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) funds and the Instrument for Stability in the context of preventive security policy or in response to climate-related security threats or conflicts, other external action funds whenever appropriated, as well as green taxes, public-private partnerships and other innovative financing mechanisms intended for this purpose. Parliament calls on the Commission to use the upcoming review of the EU budget as an opportunity to re-evaluate the EU's overall spending priorities and channel additional funds to climate change and development in general and the GCCA in particular; including by reallocating Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funds.
Reinforce the capacity for partner countries: Parliament calls on the Commission to invite the private sector to become a close partner to the GCCA, recognising that public money could play a catalysing role by incentivising investments and delivering access to markets and technology. It calls on the Commission to use the GCCA to support and strengthen partner countries' capacities to identify, manage and mitigate security threats posed by climate change and encourages the Commission to devote additional funds to this purpose. The Commission is also called upon to use the GCCA to initiate discussions both with the donor community and with partner countries on increasing preparedness and contingency planning for large-scale migration in the event that certain regions become uninhabitable due to climate change.
Complementary initiatives: the Commission is invited to develop urgently ambitious complementary policy initiatives, particularly in the fields of forest and marine protection, sustainable use of natural resources and mitigation technology cooperation, where financial needs widely exceed what is provided for within the GCCA at present. MEPs call for strong EU action in the form of financial support, technical assistance and technology transfer and cooperation to developing countries to facilitate the use, at the earliest stage possible, of technologies which emit little Greenhouse Gas and of environmentally friendly production methods. In this context, the Commission is asked to revise its proposal for sustainability criteria for biofuels and to urgently develop a comprehensive agenda to reduce deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. It is also invited to use the Alliance to develop agricultural policies and production methods which better meet the needs of local population and constitute a long-term solution to the soaring food prices.