Iceland’s Ministers of the Environment, Industry, Finance and Health met last night to try and form a joint policy on environmental issues for the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, which began yesterday.
The two government coalition parties, the Independence Party and the Social Democrats, have not agreed on this issue in the past, ruv.is reports.
Minister of the Environment Thórunn Sveinbjarnardóttir of the Social Democrats believes Iceland should agree to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as much as EU member nations when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, while Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde, leader of the Independence Party, has proposed Iceland should apply for further exemptions from reducing GHG emissions, as in 2001.
Sveinbjarnardóttir travels to Bali on Saturday where she will present Iceland’s environment policy. The conclusion of yesterday’s meeting will be discussed at a cabinet meeting today.
According to the results of a new Gallup opinion poll on where Iceland stands on GHG emissions, 95 percent of participants believe companies that operate heavy industry should pay for their GHG emissions.
Three percent disagreed and one percent was undecided. Almost 50 percent of participants believed the public should also pay for its GHG emissions.
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