On the first day of its 160th plenary session, held on 19 and 20 June, the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) adopted an opinion in favour of a global climate policy. Entitled “Towards a Global Green Deal: harmonising global frameworks for climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development”, the text, led by the Mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, and the Deputy Mayor of Budapest, Kata Tüttő, calls for a global approach to tackling the three interconnected issues of climate change, biodiversity loss and the challenges of sustainable development.
In this respect, the CoR establishes links between the objectives of the Rio Conventions, the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other international frameworks such as the future international treaty on plastics and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030). It stresses the importance of coordination between these frameworks for the integrated planning of national climate, biodiversity and land restoration strategies, as illustrated in particular by the COP28 joint declaration on climate, nature and people.
In addition, the CoR affirms that the active participation of citizens, particularly vulnerable groups, is essential to bring about societal change. It calls for sub-national governments to be better integrated into global governance processes. The CoR supports the European Green Deal as an example of this approach and calls on the EU to strengthen the strategy by guaranteeing direct funding at local and regional level.
The CoR supports sub-national government access to climate finance and calls for a reduction in the fragmentation of funding programmes.
Finally, the CoR insists on the importance of transforming international partnerships and development banks to better align sustainable development goals and human rights. This proposal aims to ensure that global efforts to tackle the climate, environmental and social crises are effective, fair and inclusive.
The ‘Pact for the Future’, which will be adopted at the United Nations Summit in September, could set in motion a ‘Global Green Deal’. With a view to COP29 in Azerbaijan in November, it is calling for the phasing out of all fossil fuels, without imposing disproportionate costs on the cities and regions that depend on them.
The opinion: https://aeur.eu/f/crg (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)