The first Agora, as previously reported by EPHA, had the heady title of ’The Future of Europe’ and as many agreed was far too broad a topic. This second Agora was on the marginally slimmer topic of Climate Change.
Gerard Onesta, Vice-President of the European Parliament and architect of the Agora, opened the proceedings saying that the decision to hold the Agora was decided on unanimously in the Parliament. The idea behind the Agora is to see if it should have a more permanent place in the parliamentary toolbox after the elections next year.
The proceedings began with a Plenary Session, followed by talks from the chairman, Mr Guido Sacconi, and Rapporteur, Mr Karl-Heinz Florenz, of the European Parliamentary temporary committee on Climate Change, about the current state of play of parliamentary work on Climate Change. He talked about the goals of 20% reduction in CO2 emmissions, 20% renewable energy and 20% increase in energy efficiency by 2020. He went on to talk about the energy package to be introduced in 2012 and the Copenhagen conference next year.
This was followed by an impressive speech from Mr Barroso, President of the European Commission, who was keen to stress that the 20% by 2020 target, despite calls that it does not go far enough, was more than just something for the press, more than just a gimmick.
Jeremy Rifkin from the Foundation on Economic Trends outlined a four pillar strategy to deal with the energy crisis. Jaqueline Mcglade, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency(EEA) followed this with her ’David and Goliath’ speech about tackling waste and consumption and going beyond GDP as an indicator of success. The final speaker of the morning was Claude Lenglet from a civil works group who made a very technical speech about the need for public financing and renovation of buildings saying: "Business as usual is not an option".
After Lunch people where divided up into their workshops, where there were lively discussions about a draft text proposal. EPHA attended two of the five workshops: Solidarity and Techniques. The aim of the workshops was to reach a consensus document and present it to the parliament.
The main points that came from the workshops were:
Decentralising renewable energy and sustainable energy buildings: getting buildings off grid.
The so called ’third industrial revolution’ with the transition to a low or no carbon economy.
The time for pilot programmes is over and we have to start installing these programmes on larger scales.
One of the most keenly stressed points across all of the workshops (four of the five) was that the 20% by 2020 did not go far enough and the figure should be increased to 30%.
The only reference to health apart from EPHA’s own contributions was when Bettina Menne from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was invited to talk: she made an urgent plea to include health when considering climate change policy.
The proceedings closed with a final word by Mr Onesto, a family photo and a press conference.
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For More Information
European Parliament press release on Agora
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