Report on the Environment Handed Over to Jürgen Trittin
The Council of Environmental Advisors expressly praises Germany's frontrunner role in climate protection. The Council supports the government's policy towards ecological modernisation. The 2002 Report on the Environment, which was handed over to German Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin today, outlines that the government provides an incentive for far-reaching innovation in industry. The report entitled "Für eine neue Vorreiterrolle" (For a new frontrunner role) expressly highlights the withdrawal from nuclear energy and the Act on Granting Priority to Renewable Energy Resources and commends the strengthening of nature conservation within the framework of a new Federal Nature Conservation Act as well as the new turn in agricultural policy.
Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin: "I am glad that the Council of Environmental Advisors supports the government's climate protection policy. The Council's proposals to further develop the ambitious climate protection policy are particularly helpful. We will study them very closely".Like Minister Trittin the Council of Environmental Advisors considers a reduction of CO2 emissions by 40 per cent compared to 1990 by the year 2020 desirable and achievable. Minister Trittin: "The Council of Environmental Advisors expressly outlines that this goal is in line with the withdrawal from nuclear energy". Above and beyond this, the expert Council expressly supports the continuation of ecological taxation against the background of effective climate protection and calls for binding EU-wide emissions trading with ambitious limit values for absolute emissions.
Minister Trittin: "The Council's proposal for Germany to play a frontrunner role in environmental protection is warmly welcomed by the government. Our environmental policy has contributed to Germany being able to defend its top position in international environmental protection. In areas such as climate protection, the withdrawal from nuclear power and the expansion of wind power Germany is already a world champion".
With a view to Germany's leading role in climate protection the Minister stressed: "We are frontrunners and we intend to stay frontrunners. Those who do their homework domestically are in a position to shape policy at international level. Climate protection creates new jobs and new opportunities for export. It not only provides ecological but also economic benefits. However, frontrunners cannot do the job for others".
Both Environment Minister Trittin and the Council of Environmental Advisors expressed their hope that emissions trading in Europe will come. "Emissions trading will come, since none of the countries will be able to fulfil its commitments without this system except for the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Sweden and Germany." He outlined that this also applied to the European Union as a whole and that this situation entailed an opportunity for the Federal Republic of Germany. Jürgen Trittin: "In this context the European Commission considers German industry with its energy efficiency know-how as one of the main providers of emission credits - in other words a net seller - within the framework of greenhouse gas emissions trading, which is currently in a planning stage. We will make sure that Germany's advance achievements in this area will not simply be made null and void by the implementation of emissions trading".
Environment Minster Trittin was confident that the challenges outlined by the Council of Environmental Advisors, in particular in the transport sector, will be tackled, i. a. with the implementation of the national sustainability strategy.
As regards waste management, the Council of Environmental Advisors and the Environment Ministry provide a similar assessment of current problems. The Council, too, feels that extending environmentally sound life-cycle management was the right path ahead. "The Council of Environmental Advisors calls upon Länder and municipalities to finally make sure that the ban on the landfilling untreated waste which will become effective as from 2005, which was agreed upon 15 years ago and which constitutes part of the Ordinance on Environmentally Compatible Storage of Waste from Human Settlements, will be implemented in due time. To this end, pre-treatment capacities must be established at municipal level". The Federal Ministry for the Environment has already asked the Länder to report on the implementation at the forthcoming conference of Länder Environment Ministers.
However, the Federal Minister strictly rejected putting a levy on drinks packagings and doing away with the obligatory deposit on one-way drinks packagings. Jürgen Trittin: "The deposit will be reimbursed. A levy amounting to the deposit would have to be paid exclusively by consumers. A levy would protect those who instigate the flood of one-way packagings - large fillers and retail chains. This is something we will never support". The deposit on one-way packagings for beer, mineral water and carbonated refreshment drinks will be introduced on 1 January 2003.
Jürgen Trittin thanked the Council of Environmental Advisors for its critical and constructive discussion of environmental policies and particularly commended the work of Chairwoman Professor Dr Gertrude Luebbe-Wolf who was appointed judge on the Federal Constitutional Court. "I have put a proposal to cabinet to nominate Professor Dr Hans-Joachim Koch from Hamburg University as her successor", Jürgen Trittin said.
The EU Council and the European Parliament will now be examining the EU Commission's white paper.