Biodiversity and 2030 climate target on agenda of informal ministerial meeting on 30 September-1 October

Combating the loss of biodiversity and climate change, two closely interlinked global challenges, are the topics on the agenda of the Informal Meeting of Environment and Climate Ministers, by videoconference on 30 September and 1 October organised by German Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Svenja Schulze.

The Executive Vice-President of the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, and the European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, will represent the European Commission. 

Climate action: this will be the first meeting of Ministers since the European Commission’s official proposal to raise the EU’s greenhouse gas emission reduction target for 2030 to at least 55% below 1990 levels (the current target is a reduction of at least 40%).

Ministers will discuss in particular the impact assessment of this new objective, presented by the Commission on 17 September (see EUROPE 12562/1, 12520/8).

While some Member States had pleaded with the institution for a reduction of at least 55% (see EUROPE 12527/3), others, mainly from Central Europe, have already expressed reservations about the Commission’s proposal (see EUROPE 12563/18) or even their opposition (see EUROPE 12567/24). 

But for Svenja Schulze, “it is time to take the next step: raising the EU’s climate target for 2030”. 

Biodiversity: European Ministers will meet in the wake of the World Summit on Biodiversity, scheduled for 30 September in New York at the 75^th UN General Assembly, to relaunch discussions on global ambition (see EUROPE 12569/11, 12564/14).

The ministerial exchange of views will therefore be both strategic and concrete on how to halt the alarming decline in biodiversity and restore at least 30% of land and marine areas by 2030, as called for in the new EU Biodiversity Strategy (see EUROPE 12500/12, 12491/2).

This discussion will help advance preparations for the 15^th Conference of the Parties at the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15, Kunming, China), which has been postponed to May 2021 at the earliest. 

The exchange will also focus on the links between biodiversity loss and pandemics - possible linkages highlighted in the UN Global Biodiversity Outlook 5 published on Monday 14 September (see EUROPE 12561/23). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang and Damien Genicot)