GUE/NGL MEPs have taken part in a European Parliament debate this morning on next month's UN climate change conference in Lima, Peru.

Finnish MEP Merja Kyllönen said: “Whenever we speak about climate negotiations we are wavering between hope and despair. We need to overcome this capitalist race to the bottom which dictates that production is moved to where it is cheapest and least restrictive.”

She urged the EU delegation to be constructive in Lima: “Our credibility depends on our ambitions and actions.”

Czech MEP Kateřina Konečná said: “The Lima conference should pave the way for a global agreement in Paris next year and to keep global warming under 2°. But we shouldn't just slavishly focus on specific numbers, we should also focus on investing in future technologies that allow us to cut emissions but that remain affordable.”

She also advocated a development plan that is friendly to the third world: “The developed world must help developing countries through technology transfer.”

For Basque MEP Josu Juaristi, there is a vital need to develop an ecologically sustainable economic model that would lay the foundations for an environmental economic model.
 

“This would be the means to achieve real progress for everyone,” he said. “This kind of model should include mobility policy, energy policy, public planning, town and country planning as well as consumption, production, waste management and taxation. To transform the entire economic cycle we need to make sure we take more ambitious steps.”

Spanish MEP Teresa Rodriguez Rubio said that although the EU is presenting itself as a leader in the forthcoming summit on climate change, this was simply not accurate.

“For example, there has been an increase in emissions of 5.2% for the power generation sector in Spain, even during the crisis,” according to the National Statistics Institute, she said.

“We remain addicted to an oil- and coal-based economy and we, in the European Union, are supporting the most expensive and polluting sources of power such as coal and gas, while energy poverty increases.”

“Imports and the failed system of the ETS scheme where people are lining their pockets mean that the European Union's carbon footprint has increased by 25%,” she added. “The allocation of emission quotas is outrageous. The solution should be binding legislation rather than money, money, money”.