Reacting to the decision to postpone the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission's executive vice-president in charge of the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, made a point of reaffirming the institution's climate commitments on Wednesday 1 April in a statement issued shortly after the official announcement of the postponement.
"On behalf of the European Commission, I want to assure the UK COP26 Presidency, the UNFCCC, Italy as the host of the pre-COP and all of our international partners and civil society, of our strong commitment to making a success of COP26 and to delivering the European Green Deal", said Mr Timmermans.
While stating his understanding of this decision, he assured that the Commission will not slow down its work "to prepare for an ambitious COP26".
He began by recalling that the legislative work on the proposal for a ‘climate law’ had already begun despite the coronavirus (see EUROPE 12439/2). He went on to underline that the Commission's work to present a 'global plan' by September to raise the EU's climate ambitions for 2030 was "within reach" (see EUROPE 12458/29).
The same goes for the European Parliament and the NGOs
On the European Parliament side, Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, France), Chairman of the Parliamentary Environment Committee, began by stressing that "the efforts to save lives and fight COVID-19 remain a top priority". He went on to say that this is only “a delay, not a reason to halt or stop the necessary work to tackle climate change”. Finally, he reiterated his wish to include in the 'climate law' a greenhouse gas emission reduction target raised to -55% by 2030 compared to 1990 and to finalise this legislative text before COP26 (see EUROPE 12438/3).
"Nobody should dare to use the COVID-19 pandemic to postpone the legislative process of the EU Climate Law", reacted Jytte Guteland (S&D, Sweden), Parliament's rapporteur on the 'climate law', but said he understood "the need to postpone the COP26 summit".
Calling the report "inevitable" and "understandable" respectively, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, head of WWF 's climate and energy work, and Sebastian Mang, Greenpeace 's advisor on EU climate policy, called on governments not to slow down their environmental efforts.
"EU leaders must keep their promises and take this moment to ensure public money goes to caring for people, building resilient communities and reducing emissions and other forms of pollution", said Mr Mang.
COP26 was to be held in Glasgow from 9 to 19 November. New precise dates in 2021 will be set in due course, after further discussions with the parties, announced the UK Presidency of COP26.
To consult Frans Timmermans' statement: https://bit.ly/3aCS9Se (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)