Commission to establish panel on environmental technologies
EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has announced that the Commission intends to establish a panel on environmental technologies. The panel would mobilise key players, generate new ideas and help the Commission define the next steps for action under the Environmental Technologies Action Plan (ETAP), said Mr Dimas. The Commission will discuss the panel with the Member States over the next few months, with the aim of launching it in spring 2006. Mr Dimas underlined the important role that technological innovation has to play in addressing problems such as climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Innovations such as the energy-saving light bulb not only have the potential to reduce environmental impacts, but make an important contribution to the Lisbon strategy, according to the Commissioner. 'The market for environmental technologies is global - and it is expanding rapidly,' he added. However, Mr Dimas sounded a note of caution over pinning all hopes on technology to solve the Earth's problems. Europe cannot invent itself out of the environmental difficulties that it faces, he said, and much progress over the last decade has been the result of firm and binding regulations.