The European Commission Vice-President with responsibility for Financial Services Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President with responsibility for the Energy Union Maroš Šefčovič and European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Cañete will represent the EU at the One Planet climate summit to be held in Paris on 12 December to boost climate finance.
On the sidelines of this event, the European Union and China could sign a joint declaration on climate change and clean energy, a declaration which Chinese and EU leaders should have signed on 2 June of this year at their 19th summit in Brussels. They were unable to do so because of a dispute over the status of China at the WTO (see EUROPE 11802). EU member state ambassadors, meeting in Brussels on Wednesday 6 December, recommended that the Council of the EU approve the signing of this declaration by the European Commission on behalf of the EU. The decision to accept the recommendation is expected to be adopted without debate at the meeting of the Employment, Social Affairs, Health and Consumers Council on Thursday 7 December.
In the declaration, the EU and China restate their commitment to increasing cooperation to strengthen implementation of the Paris Agreement and their determination to cooperate with all players to tackle climate change and implement the universal sustainable development programme. They also restate their desire to reduce the use of fossil energies, to foster development of clean technologies and to contribute to the target agreed by the international community of raising €100 billion per year to support the mitigation and adaptation efforts of developing countries (see EUROPE 11801).
The summit, organised on the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron, in cooperation with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, was announced at the G20 meeting in July, in the wake of the United States’ announcement that it was withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, and was confirmed at COP 23 in Bonn less than a month ago (see EUROPE 11906).
It seeks to mobilise all public and private players to energise climate finance and encourage tangible, innovative action and announcements to force international mobilisation. Some 50 leaders are expected. The US Administration will be represented by the chargé d’affaires of the United States Embassy in Paris.
Discussions will be organised in four thematic “panels”: - Scaling-up finance for climate action; - Greening finance for sustainable business; - Accelerating local and regional climate action; - Strengthening policies for an ecological and inclusive transition. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)