Ahead of the 23rd conference of the parties to the United Nations framework convention on climate change (COP 23) that opens in Bonn on Monday 6 November, chaired by Fiji, a small island that is particularly vulnerable to climate upsets, NGOs and the least developed nations have great expectations of the EU in particular, which has put itself at the head of global efforts to reduce climate change now that the Trump Administration has withdrawn.
Aware that world experts will get to work next week on the details of rules for implementing the Paris Climate Agreement before the ministers take over the following week, the NGO Friends of the Earth Europe (FoE) is calling on the EU to turn its back on fossil fuels and put its pledges into action.
Jagoda Munic, director of Friends of the Earth Europe, said on Friday: ‘European leaders lined up to restate their commitment to the Paris climate agreement following Trump's withdrawal of the US, but their statements are empty without action to transform our economies away from fossil fuels. The EU’s current climate targets, as well as its investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure are incompatible with limiting global warming to internationally agreed levels.’
Climate finance and facilitative dialogue 2018 under the spotlight
Quizzed by reporters about the EU’s expectations for COP23, Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, spokesperson for Climate and Energy European Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete, stated the EU’s position. She said they expected tangible progress in the Paris work programme, on which agreement is to be reached at COP24 in Poland, particularly tangible progress on the facilitative dialogue for 2018, which will provide the first opportunity for seeing what remains to be done. She said it was a technical COP where 196 parties would be represented. For the EU, what is important is to get something clear about how each party shall contribute to implementing the Paris Climate Agreement.
The EU is proud to be able to announce that it mobilised USD$ 20.2 billion last year in mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries (see EUROPE 11885).
Getting tangible results is the mandate given by the Council of the EU to Cañete and Siim Kiisler, current chair of the Environment Council that is negotiating on behalf of the EU (see EUROPE 11883), and they did so at the pre-COP23 minstrel conference in Fiji on 17 October.
The European Parliament’s priorities include for there to be clarification at COP23 of the structure of facilitating dialogue in 2018, and Parliament wants the EU to increase its climate objectives and have a strategy for 2050 (see EUROPE 11876). Parliament will be sending a delegation to Bonn headed by Adina-Ioana Vălean (EPP, Romania) for the ministerial section of COP23 (13-17 November).
A note from UNFCCC, prepared by the chairs of COP 22 (Morocco) and COP23, gives an overview of facilitating dialogue, renamed alanoa dialogue, a traditional word used in Fiji and the wider Pacific to encourage inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue. It will have a three-pronged structure based on the questions: Where are we?, Where do we want to go? and How can we achieve that? The dialogue will include a preparatory phase to begin at COP23 and a political phase to end at the start of COP24 in Poland in December 2018.
Gebru Jember Endalew, chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC), said on Thursday 2 November that COP 23 would be crucial for the LDCs. He explained: ‘LDCs will be pushing to deliver a Paris rulebook that catalyses greater ambition to correct our current trajectory and put the world on track to keep warming below 1.5°C.’ (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)