Universal sustainable development goals for 2030 and ratification of the Paris climate agreement will be on the agenda of the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China on 4 and 5 September (see other article and EUROPE 11611).
These are issues dear to the heart of the European Union if one may judge from the joint letter published on Tuesday 30 August by European Commission President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker stating their priorities ahead of the event.
However, while China and the United States have already announced that, on 2 September, before the meeting of the world’s major advanced and emerging economies begins, they will confirm that the Paris Agreement will be ratified before the end of the year, the European Union, just like Italy and the United Kingdom which are also members of the G20, will not be in a position to make any such statement.
To date, France, a G20 member and president in office of COP 21, is the only EU member state to have completed ratification. The ratification process is, however, underway in Germany, which decided in July to step up a gear, much to the satisfaction of Ségolène Royal, chair of COP 21 (EUROPE 11588).
“The summit will endorse a G20 Action Plan on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development outlining the collective contributions of the G20 to poverty reduction and sustainable development. It is also an important occasion to sustain momentum for swift ratification and implementation of the Paris Agreement”, state Tusk and Juncker, keenly aware that time is of the essence to give substance to the commitments made.
The proposal on the ratification of the Paris Agreement, presented by the Commission in June, is on the tables of the Council of the EU and the European Parliament. The member states have been urged to pick up the pace and to complete their national ratification procedures as quickly as possible so that the EU and the 28 member states can collectively submit their ratification instruments to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (EUROPE 11576).
The Paris Agreement, concluded on 12 December 2015, will come into force when 55 parties representing 55% of global emissions have ratified it. Thus far, 57 countries accounting for 59.88% of global greenhouse gas emissions have announced that they will have ratified the agreement by the end of the year – giving UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa grounds for optimism. However, only 22 countries representing 1.08% of emissions have so far turned the commitment into reality, according to the NGO Climate Analysis.
Addressing French diplomats in Paris on Tuesday 30 August, President François Hollande of France expressed concern at the slowness of the process. “The most pressing issue is the entry into force of the agreement before the end of the year and that is something that is far from certain”, he said. In a piece in the daily Le Monde, the former COP 21 chair Laurent Fabius stated that delay in ratification “is something that I and many others find worrying”, adding that “major difficulties are appearing or are being confirmed that it would be irresponsible to ignore”, with regard to the application of the provisions of the text and decisions agreed in Paris. The chair of COP 22, which will be held in Marrakesh from 7 to 18 November, has already called on all parties to submit their ratification instruments before this major negotiating conference opens. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)