Former Minister: climate protection is Christian, patriotic duty

Having effective climate and green policies is a “Christian and patriotic duty”, Justice Minister Judit Varga told the World Law Congress in New York on Thursday.

Speaking at the biannnual event which this year focused on the connection between sustainability and law, Varga said Hungary’s Fundamental Law made it a duty of all citizens to protect cultural and environmental assets in the interest of future generations. At the same time, the only way to guarantee lasting solutions is through international cooperation, she said.

Rather than burdening the poorest countries, the costs of environmental protection should be borne mostly by large polluter countries and corporations, she added. Cooperation based on equality can’t lead to “certain countries being stigmatised for the measures taken to ensure their citizens’ welfare and democratic choices,” she said. The war in Ukraine has had an effect on global energy policy in general and hit Hungary, Ukraine’s immediate neighbour, especially hard, she said. Energy prices skyrocketed in the wake of the EU sanctions on Russia, and Hungary is focusing on ensuring the country’s energy supplies and curbing the “sanctions surcharge”, she said.

Hungary’s government will not support any proposals “directly or indirectly risking our energy security or lifting energy prices above an acceptable level.” Meanwhile, Hungary is expanding its use of sustainable and nuclear resources and diversifying natural gas procurement to curb dependence on exporting countries.

Hungary has pledged to cut its carbon emissions by 40 percent compared with 1990 levels, and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, she noted. Hungary is 13th of the 32 countries surveyed in the Net Zero Readiness Index, she said.

Judit Varga in the USA:

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4 Comments

Annoyed says:

21/07/2023 at 20:35

For the love of Hungarians enough of Christian values rhetoric the goverment is throwing out makes me very uneasy as people are more agnostic than church goers. Stay in America if such bass of nothingness is thrown up amd out every bloody week…
Anonymous says:

22/07/2023 at 00:19

The price of crude oil is lower now than it was before the Ukraine war started so Judit Varga is pushing propaganda about any “sanctions surcharge.” Hungary carved out an exemption to access Russian gas for itself so no sanctions are in the way there either. Sanctions have actually depressed the price of oil by putting a $60 ceiling on the price Russia can obtain and Russia has been forced to sell its’ oil at massive discounts to world prices which China and India have been taking advantage of. This brings the price of oil down everywhere else. It was Russia that jacked up gas prices at first by cutting supply to Europe – it wasn’t sanctions. Fidesz politicians are feeding Russian designed propaganda to turn Hungarians against Europe and the US and make them Russophiles. It is very shameful that Hungary debases itself like that.
Michael Steiner says:

22/07/2023 at 07:15

There is a massive difference between protecting “climate” (he probably meant the environment) versus bleeding people dry and destroying our standard of living for the sake of pursuing globalist-socialist agenda. No sane person has a problem with the former. The latter, however, is a ridiculous attempt to control the planetary weather: a system that is far more complicated than the human brain and which we know even less about than we do about the human brain.
Dicktor organ says:

24/07/2023 at 15:45

I wish Michael Steiner had a brain.