WRITTEN QUESTION E-3879/00 by Charles Tannock (PPE-DE) to the Council. Carbon sinks.
Date: 2000-12-20
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU financing, afforestation, deforestation

19.6.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 174 E/171

(2001/C 174 E/179)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3879/00

by Charles Tannock (PPE-DE) to the Council

(20 December 2000)

Subject: Carbon sinks

Is the Council aware that,
in its opinion on the Jorge Moreira Da Silva report for the Environment
Committee on the Commission Green Paper on greenhouse gas emissions trading within the European
Union (A5-0271/2000), the European Parliament(cid:146)s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs declared
in paragraph 16 that: (cid:145)Further study on the role of carbon sinks, and in particular the planting of forests
and the seeding of oceanic plankton, needs to be carried out in order to give consideration to credits and
an increase in the size of national
in these
environmentally desirable areas?(cid:146)

tradable carbon dioxide quotas to reflect

investment

Subject to the proviso that a mechanism must be found which will continue to generate real reductions in
emissions, does the Council accept that the issuing of credits for both planting and retaining carbon sinks
could be enormously useful, not only in encouraging a corporate culture of tree-planting in advanced
industrial countries but also in drastically reducing the rate of deforestation in less economically developed
countries which are unlikely to be enthusiastic about cutting their CO2 emissions and whose contribution
to global warming would otherwise be almost wholly negative?

Reply

(12 March 2001)

A sustainable, environmentally friendly mechanism (as envisaged by the Honourable Member) able to
generate continual and real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would indeed be very welcomed. The
question of carbon sinks, however, has been one of the most controversial and unresolved elements of
later years(cid:146) international negotiations on climate change. The Council (cid:129) being aware of the fact that the
environmental role of carbon sinks is far from clear (cid:129) has repeatedly stated and reaffirmed its serious
concerns about the issues of scale, scientific and other uncertainties and risks associated with them. In
these regards, special reference has also been made to the scientific findings of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), stating a number of the difficulties connected with carbon sinks in its special
report on land-use, land-use change and forestry.

Without prejudice to these considerations of a more general nature, the Council recalls that the European
Community and its Member states have played, and continue to play, a very active and leading role in the
international negotiations on the establishment of a world-wide approach to the issue of conservation and
sustainable development of all types of forests.

In accordance with its Conclusions of 17 April 2000, the Council has committed the European Union to
make the United Nations Forum on Forest (UNFF) efficient and result-oriented, underscoring that the
operationalisation of
the Economic and Social Commission
(ECOSOC) should be a priority in the international agenda.

this newly-created subsidiary body of

(2001/C 174 E/180)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-3881/00

by Hiltrud Breyer (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(4 December 2000)

Subject: BSE in Germany

As the German newspaper, Frankfurter Rundschau, reported in its 25 November 2000 edition, it was
known on 24 November 2000 that, seven weeks previously, a bovine animal born in Saxony-Anhalt and