With two days to go until the end of COP24 on climate change in Katowice, 26 countries, including several EU Member States, and European Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete, made a commitment on Wednesday 12 December to raise their climate targets by 2020.
This is in response to the lessons of the IPCC Special Report on the assumption of an average global warming of 1.5 °C- the most ambitious objective of the Paris Agreement.
The news was welcomed by MEPs and NGOs in Katowice as a ray of hope brought about by the Talanoa Dialogue which has been running over the past year.
Germany, Spain, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom are among the signatories of a declaration affirming their determination to enhance the nationally determined contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement, increase the short term action and develop long-term low emission strategies.
"The European Commission and the Member States seem to have understood that they will not be able to sell this COP as a success if the outcome will be a rulebook only. Citizens all over Europe expect higher ambition when it comes to climate targets," commented Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA), member of the European Parliament delegation in Katowice, on Thursday 13 December. According to him, to contribute to a successful COP24, "the European Union needs to deliver now on all three points mentioned in the statement. Especially on the first two points, it is still not clear what the European Union will put on the table. A long-term vision is not enough."
Director of the NGO CAN Europe (Climate Action Network), Wendel Trio, believes that "the statement will boost greater ambition at the crunch time of these so far underwhelming talks". Welcoming the fact that "many European countries take the IPCC report seriously", Mr Trio said that by 2020 the EU must commit to raising its 2030 target to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 55% compared to 1990. Some Member States and the Parliament requested 55% (see EUROPE 12151, 12125).
Progress in the negotiations on the Paris Rulebook - the manual for implementing the Agreement - is slow, but these rules will probably be finalised in Katowice. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)