Debate contributions by Sergio BERLATO

To all these people – and not just to them – I say: Be careful not to be unnecessarily frightened by those who have an interest in terrorizing you to achieve their goals. Climate change has always existed and will always exist, not caused by human activities but by the different intensity of solar activity. This is what the world's leading scientists tell us, and we will certainly not be chasing the prophets of misfortune who - I repeat - have an interest in terrorising us in order to achieve their goals.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for many years the prophets of misfortune have warned us of the dangers of global warming, caused - they say - by human activities. Now they tell us that it is human activities that cause climate change, ignoring that climate change has always happened and will always happen, certainly not because of human activities but because of the different intensity of solar activity. The truth is that CO2 It is a natural element, indispensable for life on Earth and not a polluting substance. The truth is that human activities produce just 4% of all CO2 The remaining 96% is produced by volcanoes, oceans, and the breath of all living things. How long are we still willing to be fooled by those who, in order to achieve their goals, use false certainties to terrorize people and institutions?

(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, too much paper, too many rules, too many controls that distance those who work the land from their true mission: produce, innovate, ensure the maintenance of the territory, guarantee our food safety. We welcome this package of simplification measures. It is a response, perhaps belated but necessary, to the legitimate protests of agricultural entrepreneurs who are calling for more flexibility, less bureaucratic obligations, less controls. Above all, it recognises the key role of small farms, which account for two thirds of all businesses in the EU sector. We should welcome the increased focus on generational renewal, because without young farmers there is no future for our countryside. European politics, however, cannot be a fixed-term experiment. It must offer certainty and lasting tools to those who produce food for Europe. Thank you for your attention.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about global warming as if climate change were an unprecedented phenomenon and mainly caused by human activities. Yet history and scientific evidence tell us more: 1,000 years ago, during the Middle Ages, the Earth's temperature was on average higher than it is today, yet no one at that time polluted the atmosphere using coal or petroleum derivatives. While some scholars build their theories on the basis of their catastrophic predictions, serious scientists report historical and scientifically documented data, from which it is inferred that climate change has always existed and will always exist, because it is mainly related to the different intensity of solar activity and certainly not to human activities. Ideology-based catastrophic predictions are used to terrorize public opinion in order to justify taxes, constraints, and limitations on individual freedoms that are not otherwise rationally justifiable.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Community and national institutions are led to point the finger at climate change to justify the constant occurrence of forest fires. The truth is that 96% of forest fires are due to human activities, both accidental and malicious. This teaches us that it makes no sense to concentrate public resources on measures related to climate change, but that it is more appropriate to invest in prevention linked to the behavior of citizens. The vast majority of forest fires occur either because a cigarette butt is dropped carelessly or because a bonfire is not extinguished well, or because some arsonist criminal maliciously sets the fire. So what can be done to prevent these phenomena or to intervene promptly when these situations occur? We must prevent this by investing in the information and education of citizens, making them aware that the consequences of their actions can be dangerous for the safety of other people, very expensive from the point of view of economic damage and devastating from the point of view of the environment and the loss of biodiversity. But if, despite preventive actions, some of these events still happen, you must be ready to intervene immediately to make people safe and minimize environmental damage. I take this opportunity to thank all the women and men of the Fire Department and the Civil Protection, who commendably make their professionalism and courage available, often risking their lives to guarantee an indispensable service to the community. To them go our most sincere thanks.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in recent years European consumers have had to suffer a considerable increase in food prices, which has put a strain on their purchasing power. If we consider that prices granted to food producers are often lower than production costs, the main causes of increases in consumer prices must be found in the processing and marketing chains of agri-food products, where unacceptable speculation is often noted. The conflict in Ukraine has caused and continues to cause considerable difficulties in the supply of energy products at sustainable costs, a situation that is inevitably reflected in the prices paid by consumers. In the last three years in Europe there has been talk only of weapons, of sanctions, of defeating the enemy on the battlefield: Perhaps the time has come to seek solutions that can lead to peace.

We, my dear fellow Member, want to ensure adequate resources for the agricultural world and that these resources actually go to our farmers and are not lost on the streets. We want a more targeted policy that allows our farms to look to the future, not only with hope but also with certainty that they can have a decent income. This is our goal and we will move with our whole group in this direction.

Mr President, Commissioner, too many people, including in this Parliament, believe that the financial resources available to the CAP are excessive in relation to the number of potential beneficiaries. Probably those who have this mistaken opinion do not know that our farmers are entrusted with the task of ensuring food safety for all consumers but also the protection and maintenance of 3/4 of the European territory. The European Commission says it wants to make agriculture more attractive, more resilient and more sustainable. At present, agriculture is not attractive because more and more farms are closing down. Agriculture cannot be competitive and resilient if the European Union and continues to sign free trade agreements that force our farmers to face unfair competition from other non-European producers who can bring their products to our markets without having to comply with the same costly rules imposed on European farmers. By talking about sustainable agriculture, you have forced our agricultural entrepreneurs to abandon their countryside and their activities, exasperated by the imposition of your animal-environmentalist ideologies. We will see if those who are pervaded by animal-environmentalist ideology will be able to replace our agricultural entrepreneurs in the maintenance of the territory.

Dear colleague, I have expressed my views on many of President Trump's statements on the day of his inauguration. I underlined the positions I share, such as the abandonment of the Paris Agreement, such as the exit from the World Health Organization, this bandwagon that demonstrated during the period of the COVID-19 health emergency an absolutely failed management. So the same thing I have shown and emphasized with regard to the abandonment of the Green Deal. I have pointed out the things that I share in the positions taken by President Trump. I cannot say this about all the President's statements.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, President Donald Trump has sanctioned the withdrawal of the United States of America from the Paris Agreement, in which the signatories commit themselves to limiting global warming to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with the ambitious goal of achieving climate neutrality by mid-century. Probably even the President of the United States of America agrees that the fanciful, unproven theory according to which global warming is caused by the emission of CO22 On the part of human activities it is a very expensive nonsense. Well did Donald Trump take these important decisions, which affirm the victory of common sense over the animal-environmental ideology, an ideology that has caused and continues to cause enormous damage to the economy, employment and the ecosystem. Thank you for your attention.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union must improve its monitoring of the transparency of the use of public resources used to finance the projects presented in the LIFE programme. Some of these projects have been financed with numerous tens of millions of euros to encourage the return or reintroduction of large carnivores, such as wolves and bears, to the territory of the European Union, creating considerable damage to human activities, such as agriculture, livestock breeding and pastoralism, and causing a dangerous imbalance between the various species of wildlife. Were you aware that the implementation of these projects would create serious damage, which would require increasing amounts of public resources to address? This decision of yours can only be defined as sheer madness: To make mistakes is human, but to persevere is diabolical.

We, my dear colleague, have many demonstrations of climate change that have taken place in the past and that will also take place in the future, as you well know. Just study a little and you can easily find it. As far as my statements are concerned, I am here, I am Sergio Berlato, an Italian Member of the European Parliament, at the fifth parliamentary term, and I have always expressed my views with great consistency and freedom.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, to deny climate change would be to deny the evidence, simply because climate change has always existed and will always exist, because this is a constant feature of our planet: Changes mainly related to the variable intensity of solar activity. Affirming that the main cause of climate change is due to human activities, and in particular to CO emissions2 It is a theory without any scientific basis. While we share the need to counteract human activities that produce and emit pollutants that are really dangerous to human health and harmful to the environment and the ecosystem, defining as a polluting substance the carbon dioxide that plants feed on, with the consequent production of oxygen, is truly paradoxical. Why, then, do we want to falsely attribute climate change to human activities that emit CO?2? The answer can be found in the big deal of buying and selling CO emissions rights2, better known as ETS, which has raised over €175 billion since 2013. It should be noted that the prophets of misfortune, among whom stand out those who are pervaded by animal and environmental ideologies, use catastrophism as a method to frighten people and impose unjustified limitations on their individual freedoms, while causing a worrying loss of competitiveness of the European economy vis-à-vis other economies of other nations of the world. Our goal is to protect people's health and safeguard the environment, certainly not to pursue the concerned prophecies of the prophets of misfortune.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, access to clean drinking water must continue to be regarded as an indisputable right for all people. To guarantee this right, the institutions must promote the protection of drinking water from all pollutants, regardless of whether it is water available on the surface or from underground sources. Particular attention must be paid throughout the water supply chain, with continuous checks on the quality and quantity of water available. We continue to talk about climate change, but there is still too little done to collect rainwater in adequate reservoirs and then be able to use it during periods of low rainfall; rationalising the use of water, including for agricultural irrigation purposes, will help farmers to find the water they need for their activities, avoiding unnecessary waste. Equal attention will have to be paid by public institutions, which will have to adapt their water distribution networks to prevent a significant part of these resources from being lost on the street due to the inadequacy of existing water systems.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of today's debate is: What future can there be for the agricultural and manufacturing sector in the European Union? But what future can we imagine for European agriculture if we continue to make choices that force our farmers to clash daily with unfair competition from other countries that can export their products to Europe without the obligation to respect the same rules that the European Union imposes on our farmers? The trade agreements between the European Union and Mercosur are a practical example of this: This is a very serious blow to our farmers, who are called upon to suffer the consequences of these agreements, which once again see agriculture used as a bargaining chip to be sacrificed on the altar of the interests of other sectors. What future can we envisage for European farmers if we continue to consider them as enemies of the environment, implementing bad decisions such as those related to the environment? Green Deal? What future can we offer our farmers if we do not guarantee them prospects of income and dignity, enhancing the multifunctionality of agricultural activity and its indispensability, not only from an economic, employment and social point of view, but also from an environmental point of view, recalling the indispensable role of agricultural activity in the maintenance and protection of the territory, also to prevent hydrogeological instability?

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I express my heartfelt solidarity with the people affected by the bad weather in central Europe, but also in Emilia Romagna, which was already terribly affected last year by the weather. The atmospheric events that cyclically affect the various Member States of the European Union should make us understand that it no longer makes any sense to continue to talk anachronistically about the fight against climate change, but it is more appropriate to start talking about adaptation or adaptation to climate change, which have always been and will always be there, especially as a result of the varying intensity of solar activity. Enough, therefore, with the huge waste of public resources, which, far from protecting us from the effects of climate change, only end up making our economy and our productive activities lose competitiveness. Our regions are affected cyclically, sometimes by excessive atmospheric precipitation and sometimes by periods of prolonged drought. We believe that it does not take long to understand that we need to build containment and water storage basins, which can be filled in the rainiest seasons and used in the seasons of greatest drought. Seawater desalination plants have been built in desert territories for human use, but we do not understand why this is not possible in the territory of the European Union. In many regions of the European Union, many areas of considerable environmental value are irretrievably disfigured by the installation of horrendous and very expensive wind turbines – deadly instruments of mass destruction of migratory birds – or by immense expanses of photovoltaic panels, without those who are pervaded by animal and environmental ideology finding anything to object or protest for. The European Union must change the policies with which to deal with the effects of climate change, focusing and investing heavily and firmly on land maintenance works.