On 28-29 October GLOBE Germany hosted the GLOBE Europe annual Strategy Conference, organised in co-operation with the Parliamentary Council on Sustainable Development of the German Bundestag at the Paul-Löbe-Haus of the Reichstag. The meeting was attended by delegates from Belgium, Denmark, Poland, France, Estonia, Greece, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Hungary and Slovenia, with high-level ministerial speakers from Germany and the head of the European Commission delegation in Berlin among others.
Over the three sessions of the programme the participants took stock on the implementation of the national Sustainable Development Strategies ahead of next year's review of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy (EU SDS) of 2006; were briefed on the impact of the Fukushima catastrophy on Germany's energy policy in the context of the long-term decarbonisation pathway, and exchanged views on the European input towards Rio+20. Click here to access the presentations.
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In co-operation with the Parliamentary Council on Sustainable Development of the German Bundestag - Berlin, 28-29 October 2011
Session I – Managing Sustainability
Future for Our Children – Parliaments for a Management System of Sustainability and Generational Justice
Steen Gade MP, GLOBE Europe President
Overview: Sustainability Strategies in Europe
Best practice: The British and the German management system on Sustainability
- Barry Gardiner MP, GLOBE UK Vice-President
On the Agenda Soon: The European Sustainability Strategy (SDS) - Updating the European Strategy
- Marie-Thérèse Duffy-Häusler, European Commission Delegation in Berlin
Session II: Energy Policy After Fukushima – European Strategies and Impact of the German Policy Change
Presentation of European Energy Perspectives 2030
How to Replace Nuclear? Presentation of the new German Energy Legislation
How to Manage Threats and Impacts on Energy-Intensive Industries, Energy Security, the European Grid and Neighbouring Countries
- Prof. Dr. Diethard Mager, German Ministry of Economy and Technology, Head of Department - presentation and summary
- Dr. Iris Henseler-Unger, Vice President of the German Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railway - presentation
Session III – The Global Perspective – European Input to the Rio+20 Conference
Creating Jobs with the Green Economy
- Andreas Jung MP, Chairman of the Parliamentary Council on Sustainable Development of the Bundestag
- Dr. Kurt-Christian Scheel, Robert Bosch GmbH
Investing in Natural Capital
- Barry Gardiner MP, Chair of GLOBE's International Commission on Land Use Change and Ecosystems
Conference Conclusions: What National Parliaments Can Do
- Michael Kauch MP, GLOBE Europe Vice-President
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Letter from Chris Davies MEP (ALDE, UK), European Parliament rapporteur on the Commission's 'Roadmap for moving to a competitive low-carbon economy in 2050', reporting on an exchange of views with a Chinese delegation headed by Xie Zhenhua, Minister for National Development and Reform facilitated by GLOBE International at the House of Commons in London on 24th October:
"Dear Fellow Parliamentarians,
Together with Satu Hassi MEP, Vice-Chair of GLOBE EU, some British MPs, and some German representatives, I met yesterday at the House of Commons for four hours of discussion with the Chinese 'climate change team' organised by Globe International. The Chinese side was represented by Minister Xie Zhenhua (who did ALL the talking). He was accompanied by Su Wei (the chief negotiator), Li Haiyan, Gao Jian, Li Gao and Zhang Qin.
Our discussions were good humoured and briefly passionate (when the Minister was defending China's record at Copenhagen). Plans for further dialogue with GLOBE about detailed matters were confirmed.
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Letter from Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy MEP (ALDE, Netherlands) to National Parliamentarians in Europe:
Dear Colleagues,
Let me start by thanking you for your efforts to make our economies more sustainable. It is one of the main challenges of the near future to make the serious transitions towards sustainability happen.
One of the most effective ways of doing this is by phasing out those subsidies that have a negative effect on this transition, the so-called environmentally harmful subsidies (EHS). They cost us, and the tax payer double: we first pay the subsidy and secondly we have to pay to resolve the negative environmental consequence.
Within the European Union we spent a huge amount of money on EHS. The most common examples are subsidies on fisheries and for fossil fuels. On fisheries we spend more than 3.3 billion Euro whereas 40% of the European fleet still operates at a net loss. On transport we spend 293 billion Euro subsidies in the EU in 2005 (excluding harmful costs such as environmental and climate damages, estimated on 650 billion Euro), whereas the total tax revenue of the transport sector was only 200 million Euro.
I strongly believe this money can be spent more wisely. Especially in these times of austerity, where governments are desperate in finding funds. Although, attention has been given to EHS, we do not have an overview on how much each Member State spends on these subsidies. A first step would therefore be to map all EHS in Member States.
Therefore, I would like to ask your cooperation to by posing a parliamentary question to your government. To assist you, I have drawn up to following example:
"Is the government aware of the adverse effect of environmentally harmful subsidies? Is the government aware the European Union and its Member States have made the commitment to phase out environmentally harmful subsidies by 2020 within the framework of the Nagoya summit on biodiversity, the G-20 Pittsburgh summit and the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe of the European Commission (20 September 2011)? Can the government provide an overview of the existing environmentally harmful subsidies? And can the government indicate how it intends to phase out the identified environmentally harmful subsidies and within which timeframe?"
In order to give sufficient attention to the fact that we parliamentarians work together on this issue, I propose to table the questions simultaneously on 18 October 2011, exactly one year after the Nagoya summit. If you would like to participate, please let me know so I can mention your name in the press release. Obviously, you are more than welcome to use this opportunity for your own media as well.
It is of the utmost importance that we urge our governments to phase out EHS as soon as possible, both for our taxpayers and economies as well as for the environment. I would appreciate it very much if you could stay in contact with Rafael Jiménez-Aybar of the GLOBE Secretariat for Europe (
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
) with regards to your findings. That way we can also push for the eradication of EHS on the European level.
Yours truly,
Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy MEP
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE)
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