What Effect Will European Parliament Vote Have on Environmental Policy? (discussion)
Building the Green Economy, Discussion Forum, Quipu Economic Forum, Renewable Resources, Zero-combustion paradigm :: Comments (0)
6 June 2009 :: by staff
TheHotSpring.net :: The European Parliamentary elections are the world’s largest transnational democratic vote, with 375 million people across 27 nations, choosing among 650 parties for 785 seats in the Parliament. It is worth asking what effect these elections, held once every 5 years for all the seats in the European Parliament, will have on EU environmental policy. Will these elections speed the spread of clean energy resources, like wind, solar and wave power, across the EU member states and neighboring states?
The Parliament itself meets in Strasbourg and Brussels, with Secretariat meetings in Luxembourg and Brussels. It is a complex system designed to afford democratic equilibrium to a transnational, transcultural political system. It is also a system that requires a significant amount of transport, simultaneous upkeep of multiple capital city properties, and the massive print and publicity production related to communicating with so diverse an electorate.
Will the European Parliament, if only by examining its own carbon footprint and seeking to establish the firmest possible commitment to 100% clean energy, including in official transport for its members, be able to help fashion the most commercially viable clean energy economy, spread across one of the world’s wealthiest, most industrially capable regions? Will the new Parliament address the ecological fallout from rampant construction projects across the south and in the new member states, related to tourism and migration?
Most fundamental of all: will the new European Parliament help or hurt the chances for achieving a global climate treaty at the Copenhagen summit later this year?
