Activities of Dominique BILDE related to 2020/2042(INI)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on the impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations in developing countries
Amendments (36)
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas the impacts of climate change include increases in the frequency and gravity of storms, floods, landslides, extreme heat waves, droughts, forest fires and other disasters, as well as slow-onset developments such as rising sea-levels, coastal erosion, salinisationmelting ice, salinisation and an increase in the toxicity of water caused by melting ice, gradual changes in rainfall patterns and the decline, disappearance and displacement of animal and plant populations, including fishery resources, and plant populations, and conversely the proliferation of certain parasites and the zoonoses that may result from them;
Amendment 33 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas developing countries are more exposed, owing to their geographical situation, particularly in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, where the majority of the least- developed countries are located, are more exposed to the consequences of climate change and whereas the poorest and already most vulnerable populations in these countries are even worse affected, because their dwellings tend to be located in areas more prone to flooding, landslides, drought, etc., because they lack the means to increase their resilience and because they tend to live from agriculture, fishing and other activities based on natural resources, the presence of which may decrease or even cease;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
Ba. whereas large-scale, uncontrolled urbanisation in some developing countries is also a risk factor in connection with climate change, particularly with regard to the building of makeshift housing without access to running water and in very poor sanitary conditions; is concerned in this regard that urbanisation on the African continent has accelerated, resulting in the need for four million additional dwellings annually in a context of strong demographic growth; stresses the need to encourage the maintenance, as far as possible, of traditional structures, such as those linked to family farming, through investment in agroecology and by promoting generational renewal among agricultural workers;
Amendment 36 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B (new)
Recital B (new)
Bb. whereas the strong demographic growth in the least developed countries in particular is also a factor in vulnerability to climate change, particularly in view of the lack of economic opportunities for young people; is concerned in this regard by the situation in the Sahel, where the demographic transition has not yet started, since the synthetic fertility index is between 4.1 and 7.6 children per woman, depending on the country; stresses that it is up to the countries concerned to step up their efforts to control this high birth rate, taking into account the underlying cultural and religious causes, in particular the persistence of early marriage;
Amendment 38 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas poverty and inequality are both a cause and an effect of vulnerability; whereas reducing poverty and inequality is therefore intrinsically linked with climate action and must more clearly guide the EU’s development policy, with support from other EU policies affecting developing countries, as stipulated by Article 208 of the TFEU;
Amendment 41 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas vulnerability to the impacts of climate change is also both a cause and an effect of conflicts and whereas addressing this vulnerability is hugely important for conflict prevention; stresses the importance of helping developing and least developed countries to develop the resources and means needed to cope with climate change, including water resource management and forecasting and anticipating weather events, as well as health monitoring;
Amendment 42 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
Da. whereas a number of specific measures can be implemented to enhance adaptation to climate change, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, in particular the diversification of farmers’ crops and activities and the transition to more drought-resistant crops, and whereas it is in particular essential to help the countries concerned develop the means to forecast and anticipate weather events and natural disasters; deplores, in particular, the fact that the health and humanitarian disaster caused by the locust invasion in the Horn of Africa and East Africa, where 42 million people were at risk of severe food insecurity according to the FAO in April 2020, could have been mitigated by appropriate and far less costly monitoring and prevention measures;
Amendment 47 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas the basic principles of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development include leaving no one behind and addressing the needs of those furthest behind first;, and whereas a comprehensive strategy is needed for implementing this in the EU’s climate- related policieEU development policies must be guided by the sustainable development goals;
Amendment 50 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas poverty and inequality should be understood in a wide sense that includes deprivation of access to vital resources of all kinds, as well as discrimination, which reduces possible life choices and adaptation capabilities; whereas women, children, elderly people, persons with disabilities and indigenous people are often subject to discrimination, or in any case have specific needs which should be met;
Amendment 66 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas women suffer disproportionately from the impacts of climate change, owing not least to the agricultural tasks they carry out but also to the discrimination they suffer in terms of access to land and services, participation in decision-making and respect when embarking on activities traditionally dominated by men; whereas women are also strongly over-represented among people displaced for reasons related to climate change; whereas, however, men are also affected by climate change, since they are in a majority in certain sectors of activity, such as construction, where working conditions will be strongly impacted by climate change, and whereas they account for an overwhelming majority of fire-fighters, who are on the front line in the event of natural disasters, including fires;
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G a (new)
Recital G a (new)
Ga. whereas, according to Unicef, in 2015, ‘more than half a billion children live in areas with extremely high flood occurrence and 160 million in high drought severity zones’; whereas, as a result, climate change is likely to have a significant impact on children, who are more vulnerable to disease, including vector-borne diseases such as malaria, whose prevalence is likely to increase as a result of climate change; and whereas the resources deployed against COVID-19 in Africa have, as an inadvertent consequence, disrupted certain essential child vaccination programmes, even though Africa has been relatively spared by COVID-19;
Amendment 76 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G b (new)
Recital G b (new)
Gb. whereas, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 73 million children aged 5-17 are engaged in dangerous work within the meaning of Convention No. 182 of the ILO in various sectors from agriculture to construction; whereas 22 000 children die at work every year according to the ILO; whereas working conditions will deteriorate in sectors affected by dangerous child labour as a result of the geographical location and nature of the activities concerned, which are often carried out in the open air; and whereas it is therefore important that the countries concerned step up their efforts to eradicate child labour, in particular the worst forms of child labour, within the meaning of the above- mentioned Convention;
Amendment 78 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas the COVID-19 pandemic drastically increases vulnerabilities in developing countries both through its direct impact on public health and through its many deepening economic effects; whereas both the pandemic and climate change are eroding public finances while at the same time increasing financing needs, including for social protection and services, and disrupting public health services and programmes, particularly those targeting children;
Amendment 82 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H a (new)
Recital H a (new)
Ha. whereas, however, Africa has resisted the COVID-19 pandemic well, with 1 420 664 cases recorded in 55 African countries and 34 323 deaths as at the end of September 2020, and whereas initial forecasts were therefore incorrect;
Amendment 83 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H b (new)
Recital H b (new)
Hb. whereas the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the capacity of the African continent and national health systems to cope with the health emergency, as some equipment has even been produced on the continent, and whereas in future priority should be given to reliance on the national health systems of these countries in the event of a health emergency, while ensuring transparent management of any funds provided;
Amendment 84 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital I
Recital I
I. whereas the governments of developing countries must lead efforts to reduce vulnerabilities, increase resilience and their adaptability and strengthen support capacities, but the EU, its Member States and other developed and emerging countries must radically scale up their actionmodify their actions in order to make them more effective and adapted to the new needs and challenges, given that the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that are causing climate change were emitted almost exclusively by them, their emissions remain totally dominant, they possess badly needed resources for effective climate acbut are now increasingly being emitted by China and India, which are still considered to be developing countries by the World Trade Organisation, and they have made important commitments in this respect; whereas, for all these reasons, the EU, its Member States and other developed and emerging countries have a moral obligation to do much morebenefit from more favourable emission reduction conditions under the Paris Agreement but whose share of global emissions has risen from 36% to 71% over the last decade; whereas China in particular continues to invest in fossil fuels, including coal-fired power plants, in many developing countries as part of its ‘New Silk Road’ strategy, and whereas, therefore, the EU cannot bear on its own the burden and responsibility for global emission reductions;
Amendment 92 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital J
Recital J
J. whereas developing countries’ payments on their debts drain their capacities to deal with the climate and other crises and to support their most vulnerable populations; whereas international efforts to prevent debt distress and enable orderly debt workout must therefore be intensified, provided in particular that this effort is general and does not concern the EU alone, since China holds about one-third of the total debt of the African continent;
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K
Recital K
K. whereas, according to an OECD report, ‘in 2019, Official Development Assistance (ODA) from member countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) amounted to USD 152.8 billion, or 0.30% of their combined GNI’, and whereas ‘total ODA in 2019 rose by 1.4% in real terms compared to 2018’, but whereas international financing of climate action in developing countries remains extremely insufficientis without doubt inadequate and focused on emissions reduction, despite the particularly urgent need for adaptation action; whereas, however, the main mitigation efforts must take place in developed countries, where emissions are up to more than a hundred times higher per capita;
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital L
Recital L
L. whereas adaptation action should mainly focus on the most vulnerable and should include increasing the resilience of their dwellings, and the infrastructure they depend on, to extreme weather events, improving their food and water security, helping subsistence farmers to adapt their agricultural methods to changes in rainfall and temperature patterns, possibly by helping them transition to more drought- resistant crops and, where applicable, develop an activity which is complementary to the main farming activity, and helping poor people in increasingly uninhabitable areas to re- settle;
Amendment 107 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital M
Recital M
M. whereas, according to the World Bank, by 2050, without concrete climate and development action, over 143 million people in just three regions (Latin America, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa) could be forced to move within their own countries to escape the slow-onset impacts of climate change; whereas this situation will particularly affect certain economic sectors, such as pastoralism, and whereas the consequences of stresses on pastoralism are already evident in certain regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, notably the Sahel and the Horn of Africa;
Amendment 116 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital N
Recital N
Amendment 141 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Recalls that the world is badly off track to reach the agreed objective of limiting global heating to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1,5 °C; is alarmed by the impacts of this on developing countries, in particular the least developed countries; condemns the failure of world leaders to take adequate action and calls for the EU to make its European Green Deal an example of such action, in particular China, which is increasing fossil fuel projects as part of its so-called ‘New Silk Road’ strategy;
Amendment 149 #
2. Calls on the Commission to prepare a comprehensive strategy for the EU’s contribdevelopment policy to offer tangible solutions to limiting the impactthe consequences of climate change on vulnerable populations in developing countries and the least developed countries through:
Amendment 153 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 – indent 1
Paragraph 2 – indent 1
- the pursuit of rapid, radical curbing and reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions, including through own emission cuts, on the basis of a joint effort by the international community and not by European countries alone,
Amendment 159 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 – indent 2
Paragraph 2 – indent 2
- the reduction of general vulnerability through poverty and inequality reduction, as well as addressing specific vulnerabilities to impacts of climate change resulting, for example, from the locations of dwellings and, the bases of livelihoods and the dominant crop type for farmers,
Amendment 165 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 – indent 3
Paragraph 2 – indent 3
- increased support for developing countries’ capacities to take such action with resources mobilised by themselves, in particular financial support but also technical assistance, including resources for monitoring weather or health events in order to improve planning and prevention, and with the help of international climate financing and other assistance,
Amendment 171 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 – indent 4
Paragraph 2 – indent 4
Amendment 187 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 – indent 5
Paragraph 2 – indent 5
- increasconsolidating capacities to rapidly respond to needs for humanitarian aid, as global heating will inevitably keep increasing such needs;
Amendment 200 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
Amendment 211 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Considers that the strategy must include economic development, reducing poverty and inequality in general as a means to reduce risks and harm caused by climate change;
Amendment 220 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Reaffirms its commitment to poverty reduction and aid to the least developed countries as the fundamental objectives of the EU’s development policy and to the implementation of policy coherence for development; intends to strengthen its own contribution to this implementation, with a view, in particular, to helping to build an adequate EU response to the evolving climate crisis; notes that in 2019 the European Union remained the world’s largest donor, with EUR 75.2 billion in official development assistance together with that of the Member States, which is 55.2% of global aid;
Amendment 230 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Reiterates its call for a commitment by the EU and its Member States to significantly increase the adaptation finance they provide and poitake greater accounts once more tof the need for progress on the issue of loss and damage, for which additional resoclimate change adaptation measurces should be raisein development aid;
Amendment 239 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Calls for climate-related EU gender funding to be scaled up and for urgent gender-based climate action focused on women to be established in the design andthe concept of vulnerability to climate change to be fully taken into account in EU development policy and calls for the implementation of preparedness, mitigation and adaptation programmes;
Amendment 245 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Expresses its support to young people and recognises their valuable contribution in raising global awareness of climate change and the need to empower younger generations; underlines the importance of intercultural dialogue with migrants and refugees in order to raise awareness of climate change and also to combat all racist and discriminatory practices against migrants;
Amendment 251 #
8a. Stresses the need to raise awareness among young people in developing countries, and in particular the least developed countries, of the importance of their contribution to the development of their countries, especially by staying there and taking over from ageing generations of workers, including in the agricultural sector;
Amendment 255 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Calls for a common and coordinated international response led by the EU aimed at making progress in the implementation of recognition, protection and support measures for people who are compelled to move within and between countries in the context of disasters and the adverse effects of climate change; encourages the Union to analyse and adopt new approaches, considering examples of regulation at regional level such as the Kampala Convention, and to promote the incorporation of, inter alia, the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement into the domestic laws of EU Member States and of third states through bilateral and regional agreements; stresses that it is essential, above all, to contribute to creating the necessary conditions for the return of internally displaced persons within their countries and regions of origin, rather than encouraging them to emigrate;