At the second EU-Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Ministerial Meeting on Environment and Climate on Friday 5 May (see EUROPE 13176/14), 14 ministers and 65 representatives from both regions committed to strengthening cooperation on issues related to climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.
During the meeting, which was co-chaired by Franz Tattenbach, Costa Rican Minister of the Environment and Energy, and Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, the ministers emphasised the need to promote joint implementation with finance ministers, financial regulators and supervisors, and central banks.
The aim would be to create an environment that is conducive to sustainable finance and to direct capital flows in a direction that would address environmental issues. They recognised that sustainable finance has a central role in the green transition in Latin America and the Caribbean. The environmental and social impacts caused by investment and economic activity can no longer be separated.
They also discussed policies and best practices to make their economies more circular and less polluting and carbon intensive. Ministers committed to working together to advance the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
“The EU is committed to working with its LAC partners to drive the green transition and achieve zero net emissions by 2050, to better protect and restore critical ecosystems, to help the most vulnerable countries adapt to the effects of climate change and to increase collective finance, climate and biodiversity”, said Commissioner Sinkevičius in the press release issued by the Commission’s Directorate-General for Environment after the meeting.
The meeting takes place before the EU-CELAC summit on 17-18 July in Brussels. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)