Environment Council

Caroline Spelman Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and I represented the UK at the Environment Council in Luxembourg on 10 October. Stewart Stevenson, Scottish Minister for Environment and Climate Change, also joined the delegation.

Following lengthy debate, the Council adopted conclusions on preparations for the 17th session of the conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the seventh session of the meeting of the parties to the Kyoto protocol in Durban. The text signals the EU’s continued openness to a second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol as part of a transition to a wider legally binding framework, and sets out the EU’s negotiating position on the range of other issues in the negotiations.

Ministers also adopted conclusions setting out the EU’s high-level position ahead of the Rio plus 20 conference next year. These send a clear political signal that the EU wants the conference to be a success. I emphasised the need for Ministers to focus on the EU’s strategic objectives for Rio plus 20 and the need for the conference to produce concrete outcomes in order to move us towards a genuine “green economy”.

Recently I attended the Delhi ministerial meeting on Rio plus 20. There was broad consensus that delegations have little appetite for simply agreeing a long-winded communiqué at Rio—they want action and implementation. The main outcomes of the Delhi meeting were: widespread agreement on the need for specific measures to make the transition to a greener global economy; recognition of the strong links between climate change, biodiversity and poverty reduction, and their importance for growth; agreement on the need to strengthen international environmental governance; and considerable interest in the Colombian proposal for sustainable development goals. Food security and sustainable agriculture, energy security and energy access, and resource efficiency were all identified as key themes for the Rio plus 20 summit.

The Environment Council also adopted conclusions on the review of the sixth environment action programme (EAP) and looking forward to the seventh. In this context, the Commission presented its road map towards a resource-efficient Europe, making it clear that they saw this as a comprehensive issue, covering much of the Commission’s work on environment, climate and energy. Both issues were discussed by Ministers over lunch, with several Ministers emphasising the need to focus on implementation of existing legislation rather than new initiatives in developing a future framework.

The Council adopted conclusions and a Council decision setting out the position of the EU and its member states ahead of the 10th meeting of the conference of the parties to the Basel convention on the control of trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal which will, among other things, discuss the mechanism for entry into force of the “ban amendment”.

The Aviation Emissions Trading Scheme was discussed under other business: the Commission encouraged member states to defend vigorously the legislation and counter some of the misunderstanding evident among others. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change agreed with their approach and reiterated the UK’s full support for the directive.