“Building bridges and developing the multilateral climate agenda”. According to the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, this six-month period is an opportunity for the EU to address the issue of climate change on the international stage.
COP28, which will take place from 30 November to 12 December in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), looks set to be a “milestone” event for the new rotating Presidency of the Council. As stated in its programme, the United Nations Climate Change Conference will coincide with “the completion of the first global stocktaking”, which is an opportunity for the EU to put forth its position “with respect to the goals set out in the Paris Agreement” (see EUROPE 11452/1).
Spain also states that “the European Union must adopt a more ambitious approach to climate action in order to meet the objective of restricting the global temperature increase to no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, within a context of development resilient to climate change”.
To this end, the Spanish Presidency is calling on the Member States to “promote a further round of far-reaching national contributions, in line with scientific recommendations”. Spain also believes that the main question now is how to “make up for lost time”. This will be one of the subjects addressed at the informal ministerial meeting on the environment to be held on 10 and 11 July in Valladolid, which the controversial future president of COP28, Sultan Al-Jaber, is expected to attend. The aim of the meeting will be to define Europe’s main expectations ahead of the summit.
According to the Spanish Presidency, these ambitions cannot be separated from accelerating the green transition. This is why the green transition is the second major priority of the Spanish programme.
“This transition must improve the quality of life of its citizens, generate employment opportunities and ensure that burdens are fairly shared, in a framework of social justice and solidarity”, emphasises the new six-monthly Presidency of the Council, which wants in particular to “boost the decarbonisation of the EU’s economy, completing the adoption of the ‘Fit for 55’ package” and “foster a green economy”.
In addition to environmental measures, the fight against climate change is therefore integrated into a number of EU sectoral policies, such as defence and home affairs.
For Spain, it is essential to reconcile global finance with the demands of climate change, “taking into account the needs of the world’s poorest countries”.
On the legislative front, the Spanish Presidency believes it is necessary to adopt regulations to restrict the emission and use of ozone-depleting substances and fluorinated gases, for which an interinstitutional meeting is scheduled for 19 July (see EUROPE 13201/19). Finally, the “prevention and management of droughts and other quantitative aspects of water” are also priorities.
The programme: https://aeur.eu/f/7xi (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)