BBC NEWS | Talking Point | Forum | World Summit: You questioned the EU Environment Commissioner

Click here to watch the forum with EU Environment Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom

The European Union (EU) has come under fire from environmentalists for not backing developing countries at the Johannesburg World Development Summit.

Although politicians are claiming headway is being made in closing the gap between rich and poor nations, Greenpeace has criticised the EU for a lack of leadership on trade, energy and corporate accountability.

Delegates from the European Union have complained that their American counterparts are not prepared to sign up to specific targets on issues such as energy and water.

The EU wants an international target for 15% of energy to come from renewable sources, like wind and solar energy, by 2010.

Transcript

Newshost:
Welcome to the BBC's Interactive Online forum. Today we're discussing the environment. The European Union has come under fire from environmentalists for not backing developing countries at the Johannesburg Earth Summit.

Delegates from the European Union have complained that their United States counterparts are not prepared to sign up to specific targets on issues such as energy and water. The EU wants an international target for energy from renewable resources, like wind and solar energy, for example, by 2010.

Margot Wallstrom, the Environment Commissioner for the European Union travels to the summit in Johannesburg this weekend but she joins us now from Brussels.

Let's start with an e-mail from Edward Cameron in Brussels, he says: Best practice begins at home. How can the EU preach to others, when we continue to subsidise fossil fuels ourselves? We are always rewarding cost above environmental criteria.

Margot Wallstrom:
It is true of course that we have been late in implementing what was decided in Rio. But I think that we have at least made a very important start by adopting a strategy for sustainable development and we have also reviewed our Common Agricultural Policy and I think it goes in the right direction.

Newshost:
Going in the right direction - but when do you think we'll see real results for renewable energy, for example?

Margot Wallstrom:
We already do and we have set ourselves in the European Union clear targets and by 2010 we will be able check whether we have been able to actually increase or double the share of renewable energy in the European Union.

Newshost:
Brian Lipscombe, UK: A lot of things that were decided at the Rio summit involved local communities across Europe responding to those decisions. Will you press for greater recognition of what's been done on a local level by ordinary citizens of the EU?

Margot Wallstrom:
He's absolutely right. I think that this is indeed very important in Johannesburg that we present our proposal clearly enough about linking, for example, our network of several hundreds of sustainable cities with cities in, for example, Africa and in the developing world. So this is one very concrete proposal of a sort of twinning to make sure there is an exchange of best practices and then good examples of what you can do at a local level.

Newshost:
T Sherman, Johannesburg asks: It's no good educating and informing everybody about environmental pollution, for example, and all the other issues to do with protecting our bio-diversity, if people don't change their behaviour. A comparison between South Africa and Singapore showed that Singaporeans were far better informed about environmental pollution and the cost of their behaviour to the environment. But when it came to practice, both the South Africans and the Singaporeans questioned, behaved in exactly the same way. So knowledge hasn't actually changed behaviour.

Margot Wallstrom:
No, it's not enough. You need to create incentives that are much more forceful than only using information. I think that, for example, getting the prices right is a forceful incentive. So you have to do things also in changing legislation and creating a motivation for people and companies of course, to act better to protect the environment.

Newshost:
Can you give us some examples of those motivations or taxes, if you like - would it be trying to get people to take the bus to work and take away car park spaces in offices?

Margot Wallstrom:
You have to make it more expensive to use fossil fuels. You have to remove subsidies, you have to get the taxes and charges right so that you can actually feel it where it hurts the most and that is in your wallet most of the time and then you start to change your behaviour.

Newshost:
Are there any other examples?

Margot Wallstrom:
I think that again it's about creating a legislation where you actually also force companies and authorities to do the right thing. This includes setting limits of emissions, for example, and where you can actually also take them to court if they do not comply, as we do in the European Union and where we have also for the first time introduced fines for a member state for breaching our environmental legislation.

Newshost:
So could we see companies being fined for not recycling their waste paper for example, or homeowners being fined not putting their potato peelings on the compost heap but throwing them in a plastic bag?

Margot Wallstrom:
I think that we will see much more of these financial or economic steering instruments being used in environmental policy in the future. Meaning that, yes, you will have to pay or at least it will be much more expensive to do a wrong thing.

Newshost:
Another topic now that highlights population control and population growth. Mike Wilson, UK asks: The logic is simple - fewer people means more resources, more cash to go round, less pollution and of course less environmental damage. When you go to the Earth Summit will you be specifically listening out for, is the answer population control?

Margot Wallstrom:
No, I am sorry that is not the answer. I wish there was a simple clear answer like that but that is not true. Already Mahatma Ghandi said - the world has enough for everybody's needs but not for everybody's greed. It is all about distribution of wealth. If you distribute the world's resources in a fairer and more even way, then it would be enough for everyone, even a bigger population. It's all about the fact that the rich countries and the population in the rich part of the world use so much more of the world's resources.

Newshost:
Fernando Porio, Philippines: Without the commitment of rich countries and a clear plan of action, nothing will come out of any summit agreement. How about treating poor countries with dignity and respect for a change? The behaviour of wealthy nations is so condescending.

Margot Wallstrom:
Absolutely. That has to be the starting point of everything we're doing and respect for each and every living human being on this planet and that has to be based on human rights and respect of the human being. This is also actually a UN conference - a UN summit - in Johannesburg and that is why we have to use also the Charter of Human Rights as our starting point.

Newshost:
How can Europeans and the EU make a difference? You're going to the summit with your environment hat on and your EU hat on. The EU countries are relatively very, very wealthy compared to many of the countries attending the summit.

Margot Wallstrom:
Our message is actually a very concrete and practical one. We're saying that we have to translate this fantastic concept of sustainable development into something which can actually change the everyday life of people, especially in the poor countries.

That is why we're proposing an agenda which is focused, which concerns, for example, setting a target for when we want to halve the number of people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation. That is why we want a clear target about access to energy and because there are so many energy-poor countries in this world and if you don't have electricity, it's very difficult to run schools and factories and actually create development in the poor countries.

Newshost:
So the effective development of a community suffers simply because there isn't electricity to light a light bulb for a child to study?

Margot Wallstrom:
Yes exactly - that's a good example. We have a very concrete agenda and we think that this should be the summit that brings at least clean water, energy and better health to this world's poor.

Newshost:
One of the focuses earlier on this week was on farming - the spread of deserts, poor farming techniques, the chopping down of rainforests and woodlands. We have an e-mail from Australia on EU farm subsidies. They say, it is no good trying to get farmers to behave better in developing countries whilst the EU and America gives enormously expensive and absurdly destructive agriculture subsidies. So how can the developing farmer compete against Europe and America?

Margot Wallstrom:
That is true and that is also why we have now taken a very important decision lately in the European Union to review our Common Agricultural Policy where we move from export subsidies and production support to instead achieve rural development and environmental protection. So this is definitely a very important change and going in the right direction.

I also know that what was in the American Farm Bill, made the preparations for this summit much more difficult. So the e-mailer is right in saying this and we have to move in a new direction and a better direction to be credible. A lot of the tensions in Johannesburg in our negotiations will be about the lack of trust from the developing countries in our ability to actually implement what we are saying and to be serious about our own objectives and targets.

Newshost:
That cynicism and lack of trust has really been something that has leaked out of the conference buildings this week. How can Europe guarantee to a developing world farmer that these differences that you talk about are going to come now? Because it is now that they are chopping the forests, it is now that they are burning forest - as we speak - and these deserts are creeping forward, not by millimetres but by centimetres and metres per year. So we really need to have action this week don't we?

Margot Wallstrom:
Yes, that true. It's only by taking action that we can become credible and that is also why it is so important that we get a decision and we've presented a proposal for reviewing the whole Common Agricultural Policy and that we start to move in that direction.

But as you know, we've also taken a clear initiative which we are implementing right now and that is to open our markets for trade for the least developed countries who are the poorest countries in the world. So we've opened all our markets for everything but arms and that is of course a very important and concrete initiative.

Newshost:
A bit of a cheeky e-mail here from Christopher Shaw in England: Huge amounts of carbon dioxide will have been created in transporting thousands of delegates to the sustainable development summit in Johannesburg. The whole affair is just meaningless and isn't the media making it even worse by attracting the interests of the rich and powerful? You're on your way to Johannesburg this weekend, so your plane is going to be creating more CO2 pollution. Do you feel guilty about contributing to that?

Margot Wallstrom:
Yes, I always feel guilty when I have to go by car or by plane. But at the same time, this is a democratic process. It is a United Nations process of taking decisions that are really very, very important for this planet and for our future. So I think that you also have the democratic aspect of it. We should put these questions to ourselves and how we can actually reduce the emissions from aeroplanes and so on.

But we cannot stop meeting - we have to continue to try to solve global problems in a global way. This is why it is such important summit and it is not only, of course, the environmental meetings that ought to listen to this criticism - that goes for all the different meetings. We have to do everything we can to reduce our emissions but at the same time we have to meet and we have to discuss and take decisions on these important issues.


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