ΦΙΛΟΙ της ΦΥΣΗΣ | NATUREFRIENDS INTERNATIONAL | Χάρτα για το Κλίμα, 2 NFI-Klimacharta_EN | Page 6

sion permits by the year 2012. Efforts must be made to include additional emis-
sion intensive sectors (e.g. air transport and construction industry) in the system.
• A Europe-wide ecological tax reform, designed to raise taxes on the use of energy
and resources, while lowering them on labour.
• Setting up a EU Climate Council which – similar to the IPCC at global level –
would work out scientifically founded, practical measures and monitor their im-
plementation within the EU.
• Implementing the EU “Green Paper on Adaptation”, which provides for adaptation
measures in response to the, by now inevitable, consequences of climate change
within and outside Europe, as part and parcel of a holistic climate policy. Adapta-
tion to climate change must be upgraded to one of the core topics of EU devel-
opment cooperation.
• As an above-average CO 2 emitter, Europe must demonstrate its sense of respon-
sibility for planet earth and in particular for below-average emitting developing and
threshold countries, which suffer from above-average impacts of climate change,
by introducing, inter alia, the following measures:
o Putting in place high-capacity mechanisms and institutions tasked with
funding targeted mitigation and adaptation projects in threshold and devel-
oping countries, over and above poverty reduction. Applying the ‘polluter-
pays’ principle, the funds required should be raised by taxing energy, sell-
ing emission permits or introducing new financing instruments, such as lev-
ies on flight tickets, taxes on foreign-exchange transactions or on aviation
fuel.
o Pro-actively influencing national and international financial institutions (de-
velopment banks, World Bank, IMF, ...) to channel financial assistance and
incentives away from fossil and nuclear energies to renewable, decentral-
ised energy sources and to efficiency technologies.
A comprehensive Community climate strategy underpinned by the above-mentioned
key measures is, on the one hand, conditional on boosting investments in education
for sustainable development and in climate and sustainability research. On the other
hand, radical structural changes must be effected especially in the energy, transport,
manufacturing and construction sectors as well as in agriculture and forestry.
a. Energy
• Raise the percentage share of renewable energy sources in the overall amount of
energy consumed in the EU to 25% by 2020, and to 50% by 2050.
• Frame an energy efficiency plan, based on the Community Green Paper on En-
ergy Efficiency, which provides for a 20% cut in energy consumption by 2020, and
ensures compliance of member states with the existing EU Directive on Energy
Efficiency.
• No to nuclear energy, which must be considered a dangerous dead-end solution
to climate protection, considering the unexplored hazards and unsolved problems
along the production chain (e.g. the extraction and final storage of radioactive
fuel).
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