(12/05/05) WTO-sancties voor landen die Kyoto niet volgen?

• 2005-05-12

European Parliament resolution on climate change:
MEPs call for trade sanctions against Kyoto free-riders

The European Parliament today adopted a resolution on the Bonn seminar of governmental experts on climate change calling for the European Commission to explore the possibility of trade measures to offset any competitive advantage that producers might have in industrialised countries without carbon constraints.

Finnish Green MEP Satu Hassi, Vice-President of the Parliament's environment committee, said:
"After the end of the first Kyoto commitment period, the world will need more drastic emissions cuts and more countries to take part in the emissions reduction challenge."

"Current emissions, in addition to those that have accumulated in the atmosphere during the past 150 years, are responsible for global warming and already obstruct development in many of the world's poorest countries. The EU and the rest of the developed world must acknowledge this responsibility and accordingly accept a greater share of the burden for emission reductions."

"It is evident that the most advanced developing countries need to be on board. However, it will be very difficult to engage countries such as China and India to take measures to curb emissions if the biggest emitter and the richest nation in the world – the US – remains a 'free-rider'."

"We call on the Commission to carefully consider the possibility of setting WTO-compliant border adjustment measures on trade against those countries that take a free ride at the expense of our planet."