The European Commission sent an information note to Member States on 21 October on the energy-related declarations that the European Commission intends to sign on behalf of the European Union at the 26th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) to be held in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November.
The note includes three declarations to be signed by as many countries as possible at COP26: a declaration in favour of a ‘Breakthrough Agenda’, a declaration on the global transition from coal to clean energy, and a declaration to support the conditions to enable a just transition at an international level.
The former aims to secure a commitment from world leaders to work together at an international level to accelerate the development and deployment of clean technologies during this decade in order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and ensure that they are affordable and accessible to all.
The idea is to set global targets by 2030 for a number of key sectors, namely electricity, hydrogen, road transport and steel.
The aim of the latter declaration is to encourage momentum and ambition in developing renewable energy sources, accelerating the energy transition, phasing out coal-fired power generation and supporting the just transition.
One of the commitments included in the declaration is to phase out coal-fired power generation by the 2030s (or as soon as possible thereafter) for major economies and by the 2040s (or as soon as possible thereafter) on a global scale.
Signatory countries would also commit to stop granting new permits for new coal-fired electricity generation projects, cease all new construction work on coal-fired electricity generation projects and end all new direct government support for international coal-fired electricity generation.
The third declaration underlines the international support there is for developing and emerging countries that are engaging with the global energy transition, which is one of the major challenges of COP26.
With developed countries currently failing to meet their commitment to provide developing countries with $100 billion a year until 2025 to help them deal with climate change, there are many calls for them to be more ambitious in this respect.
As the note states, each of these three declarations is a non-binding multilateral instrument.
The Commission’s briefing note will be shared between Member States on 28 October at a meeting of the EU Council’s Energy Working Group.
Read the briefing note: https://bit.ly/2Zl0mdt (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)