Debate: Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System - Social Climate Fund - Carbon border adjustment mechanism - Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System for aviation - Notification under the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation
Date: TUESDAY, 7 JUNE 2022
Speaker: Frans Timmermans
Language: EN

That is not ideology, ladies and gentlemen, that is science. Then ideology comes in and then you make the choices you want to make. But I would hold before you today: denying science, that’s ideology. Denying science: that is using ideology to deny our children and grandchildren a safe future. By protecting – so-called ‘protecting’ – what you have today, who will suffer most if we procrastinate? It is the poorest people in society, it is the people who have nowhere else to go. It is the small businesses. It is the farmers. These people will suffer most the longer we take to do what is needed. Rich people can always find a different place to live, can always find a way out. Ordinary people cannot.  That’s why I believe we need to act. Parliament knows full well I respect the fact that you found a compromise on the dedicated ETS system. I don’t agree with that compromise, as you know. And we will see what happens in the trilogue. But my fundamental point here is: look, try and create as much transparency as you can where the cost will fall. Of course there is a cost involved in introducing a price on carbon, but if you combine that with a climate social fund that will mitigate those costs for those most vulnerable or those who are hit most by this, then I think this is justified. If you put the cost elsewhere, which is what the compromise upon does, then you have to also be honest that cost sooner or later will also end with the same people. And then you need to ask yourselves: is then the climate social fund big enough to then really mitigate those costs? But we’ll get there, I guess, in the trilogues when we revisit the issue. Now, another element which for me is extremely important, which was raised by many – a bit less here, a bit less there. As far as European industry is concerned, they want one thing and that’s clarity: clarity, predictability and reliability. So let’s not fudge things. Let’s not introduce the idea that there could be also in the future fuels that would be clean. No: for cars and vans that’s nonsense. The car industry has made its choice. Don’t confuse them. If they’re already on board for electric mobility for cars and vans, don’t make it more difficult for them. And don’t postpone 2035, many car-makers are even on a sooner trajectory. 2035 isn’t science fiction. Some would even argue it’s not ambitious enough. But I think this is where we could all land. And those car manufacturers that might have difficulty because they make smaller cars are in a different position, they can profit from support from the Just Transition Fund to make these things happen more quickly. But don’t create a fudge with a so-called 90% or with these fuels that are way too expensive to ever form a solution for cars and vans. And, by the way, we will need them in aviation, but that’s a different discussion altogether. All in all, Mr President, I think we live in the most transformational time, arguably, that humanity has ever experienced. One could say that the first Industrial Revolution was also transformative. True, but it took a long time and it didn’t happen everywhere at the same time. This Industrial Revolution, combined with the climate crisis, is the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced. And the bad news is we are coming late to this challenge. The good news is we can still fix it if we act now. If you vote tomorrow to let us fix it, and the rest of the world is already following us. Yes, we are only responsible for 8% of global emissions, but the Chinese are copying our ETS systems. The Americans are very interested in what we’re doing on CBAM and looking whether they could have the same systems.  The circular economy that we’re creating is copied everywhere in the world. And, like it was with the internal market, like it was with environmental legislation, like was every time we took a step higher on the levels of our protection, parts of industry would say, ‘this is the end of industry, this is the end of employment, so many million jobs will disappear’. The reality is, every time Europe ups the ante our economy grows, our employment grows, and the rest of the world follows our lead. Let it be the same here again.