European Parliament weakens ambition to fight climate change – Miriam Dalli

Plans to help industries innovate and fight climate change were weakened after the conservative factions in the European Parliament pushed through changes that watered down the agreement reached in December in the Environment Committee, MEPO Miriam Dalli said yesterday.

The EU is the world’s third largest CO² emitter and the Emissions Trading System (ETS) which was voted upon in the European Parliament applies to more than 11,000 industrial and energy installation, covering almost 50% of Europe’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions. In Malta this covers the Delimara Power Station. The ETS has many times been labelled as the crucial tool that can help the EU reach its climate and energy goals and fulfil its obligations to mitigate climate change under the Paris Agreement.

The Environment Committee voted in December on a compromise agreement which was described as a step in the right direction to start addressing climate change and help industries, but with the vote of the whole European Parliament today, the EU backtracked from the Paris agreement which was ratified only a few months ago.

MEP Miriam Dalli, spokesperson for the Socialists and Democrats stated that, “The report adopted in Parliament does not ensure a system that delivers on climate change, that promotes innovation and that helps protect jobs. On the contrary this vote shows that the conservative members of the European Parliament prefer to simply pay lip service to climate change and the environment and are willing to handout pollution freebies to big industry lobbies. Certain industrial sectors that have no incentive to innovate will continue with business as usual, with longterm negative impact on their competitiveness and our societies.

“As Socialists and Democrats we always wanted to register positive progress on three very important fronts: climate, industry and society. The transition to a low-carbon society will only work when we combine all three. This is what we managed to achieve in the Environment Committee but which was unfortunately voted down in the plenary,” she stated.

The vote in the European Parliament plenary was of 379 votes in favour of the weakened package, with 263 votes against and 57 abstentions.