Debate: Presentation of the Fit for  package after the publication of the IPCC report
Date: TUESDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2021
Speaker: Frans Timmermans
Language: EN

Now we have a couple of traps. We as politicians who have the responsibility today because we were elected to do this, or appointed to do this, we have a couple of traps we need to avoid. The first trap to avoid is to underestimate the size of the challenge. As I’ve said before, before you, I repeat it, it’s going to be bloody hard and nobody should have any illusions that this is going to be easy. The second trap to avoid is to talk all the time about the cost of the transition and avoiding to talk about the cost of non-transition. The costs of non-transition not just in economic terms – just look at what the floods are doing, just look at what the wildfires are doing, etc. – but especially the cost in human terms. Our children will be waging wars over water and food if we do not act now. And the migration crisis we’ve seen so far will be child’s play if you compare it to the migration flows that will result from the climate crisis getting completely out of hand. Do we. do those of you who criticise the Fit for 55, who criticise climate policy, do they really look at that aspect of non-action? I hope so. I hope so.  Secondly, another trap we need to avoid is falling back into what happens at any time in our history when there are paradigm shifts, when there are fundamental changes, falling into the trap of what I would like to call obscurantism. It’s all around us – denying science, denying facts, believing in the most idiotic conspiracy theories. We don’t have the luxury as politicians to let that pass. We need to react to this. We need to stand up for science. We need to stand up for facts. And we need to be honest about the consequences of science and of facts even if that poses all of us very complicated issues and challenges. The next trap I want to mention is linked to the previous one. Because there is such a lack of optimism in our society, even a dominating fear of regress, a fear of loss, democratic politics risk being caught in what I would like to call short-termism, that the only objective we have is to get re-elected in three or four years from now, and that we avoid any proposition to our citizens that might make that re-election more difficult. We cannot afford to do that. As in this generation, we have to take the responsibility for next generations. We have to take the responsibility for measures that might be painful in the first couple of years but will result in a more just society, with humanity being able to live within the boundaries the planet sets us.  This is not just a domestic agenda, it is an international agenda. We have to convince the international community to follow the European Union’s lead in working towards a mutual society by the middle of this century, a society where the world lives well within planetary boundaries. The bad news is it’s bloody hard. The good news is it’s absolutely possible. It’s absolutely possible to get us there. And I want to tell you that I have more confidence in the understanding of our population that this will be necessary and that there will be a cost involved than some of the politicians I’ve heard here today. The thing is, our population will support this even if, for individuals, this means a sacrifice. If we can manifestly show that the sacrifice leads to results and that the burden is shared in an equitable and solidarity-based way, that is going to be the big challenge because, and let me end on that, the final trap, the most immediate trap, and I heard it here today, we need to avoid at all costs, is that we oppose social equity and solidarity to tackling the climate crisis, that we pretend as though tackling the climate crisis would lead to social inequality, whereas it is evident on the basis of science that not tackling the climate crisis will lead to the most horrible social inequality, because rich people can always find a way out and a place to live. Poor people, middle classes, cannot, and will suffer if we don’t act now.