When asked about the first measure he would take if he became Climate minister, Bart Staes said: “a law on the climate with binding objectives”.
He thinks we need new measures in many areas, but the most crucial is to dramatically reduce CO2 emissions in transport and massively invest in public transport.
He refuted the idea that it could negatively impact social management. “Europe loses billions of euros every year through tax evasion and tax fraud. If we got half of that back, or even a quarter, we would have a lot more money at our disposal”, he stated
He also said allocating money to climate policies should not be a taboo. “It’s now become urgent: global warming has to be limited to 1.5 degrees by 2030. The Accounts court has said that we have to allocate 1.115 billion euros every year. It is possible. But we can’t attack government budgets to do it. Why not create a European climate bank? It could invest money to finance citizens and businesses via interest-free loans”, the Green MP said.
Jason Bennett
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