Orbán: Poor citizens mustn’t be made to bear costs of climate action

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in a video posted on his Facebook page on Friday, declared his talks at the European Union summit in Brussels a success, saying that there was now a chance to ensure that poorer EU countries and citizens would not be made to bear the costs of fighting climate change.

“We succeeded because we’ve created a chance to ensure that future climate protection regulations will be such that it won’t be the poorer countries and people who will have to bear the costs of the fight against climate change,” the prime minister said after the summit.

Orbán called Hungary a “climate champion”, arguing that it was among the member states that have delivered the biggest reductions in CO2 emissions since 1990.

“We know how important the fight against climate change is, but we Hungarians also know that it comes at a price,” Orbán said. “And it’s a steep price because this is an expensive matter.”