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		European Parliament's Hypocrisy Over Environmental Targets Tuesday, 11th November 2008 Syed Kamall, MEP for London, has branded the latest attempts by the European Parliament to save carbon as hypocritical given the continued insistence on travelling between two separate buildings in two cities: Brussels and Strasbourg and maintaining a third building in Luxembourg. Travelling to and from Strasbourg costs about £180m a year and produces about 20,268 tonnes of CO2 emissions. The parliament has announced it wants to cut its carbon footprint by 30% by 2020. They plan to make the cuts by using hybrid vehicles and ensuring that when buildings are rebuilt or refurbished they have energy saving measures fitted. The move will do little to countenance the huge costs of fulfilling treaty obligations that require the whole parliament to move to Strasbourg for one week a month, Syed Kamall said: "Anything that saves energy is a good thing; it helps the environment and saves the taxpayer money however these environmental targets are totally hypocritical. There's no doubt that the easiest way to cut the carbon footprint is to stop spending one week a month in Strasbourg." "It also beggars belief that a new Parliament office in Luxembourg is being extolled as "green" when a more environmental friendly move would be to close down the existing building there completely. "In difficult economic times we shouldn't be funding the extravagance of having three centres for the European Parliament!"