MEPs would like to see substantial revenues from the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme allocated to the development of green technologies. This particular proposal is backed by the 64 year old Stockholm born Anders Wijkman who sits in the centre-right EPP-ED group in Strasbourg.
 
Mr Wijkman, in backing your report, fellow MEPs have called for a “Global Alliance on Climate Change” between the EU and developing countries. What can this achieve?
 
The main thing is that by this initiative we recognise that climate change will have effects all over the world but that it will affect development most adversely in the low income countries because of their location. They will have more extreme weather events, more droughts and floods, and great difficulties with agriculture and farming.
 
In areas like Southern Bangladesh, people will have to move because sea levels are rising - making large areas uninhabitable. Water scarcity will be a problem, not just because of less rainfall but because of huge changes in the hydrological systems along the big mountains in the world.
 
What are the main obstacles?
 
The big problem is that there is too little funding foreseen by the European Commission, only 60 million euros, while the World Bank estimates that 11 to 40 billion dollars a year are required for risk reduction and adaptation of factories, offices and other things that pollute. The UN Development Programme came up with the figure of 86 billion, nobody knows exactly, but we are talking big money.
 
We have to mobilise new funding and the Parliament proposes to earmark 25% of auctioning revenues from the EU emissions permits. (This figure could be tens of billions euros a year).
 
In the face of growing resistance to the climate change package within the EU due to the financial crisis, how credible is the Union's position in leading on climate change globally?
 
Leadership is threatened by some states. One of the countries that strongly question the package is Poland. They have a special situation. They are locked into a coal power economy and if we want them to sign onto this package we have to offer them something.
 
I think in the Baltic context we could do that. Sweden will have surplus electricity and could offer them carbon dioxide free electricity at a decent price in huge volumes. This would make them less dependant on coal and avoid them feeling like they rely on Russia.
 
President Nicolas Sarkozy (who addressed MEPs on October 21) made a good point when he said that nothing related to the financial crisis is an argument why we should not take climate change seriously. It has been well demonstrated that the more we delay action, the more costly it will be in the future and the consequences may be very grave.
 
If we risk a recession, to invest in green technology would be an economic policy that makes sense because it would result in the kind of growth that is positive for climate and it would make our companies more competitive in the long term.