On 6 March 2015, EU environment ministers agreed a mitigation target as the EU’s official contribution to ongoing climate talks under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC): by 2030 the EU intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels.
At around the same time, the European Commission unveiled a far-reaching and detailed proposal for the design of a new international climate agreement. In the process of adopting a formal EU negotiating mandate, member states now have to decide whether to support the Commission’s proposals. Their considerations will need to bring internal European interests and France’s role as host of the UN climate talks in December into harmony with overall EU climate policy ambitions.
National climate commitments in the UNFCCC process
All 195 parties to the UNFCCC were asked to announce their “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) to a new global climate agreement by the end of March 2015. But by this deadline, only 32 countries (the EU-28, Switzerland, Norway, United States, Mexico) had done so. By the end of June, Russia, Canada, China and seven small countries had joined them. (The EU had hoped that by adhering to the schedule, it would set an example to other states and underscore its credibility in fighting climate change.)
The INDCs have not been clearly defined in the UNFCCC negotiation process. On the one hand, they are supposed to serve as a means of communicating national climate targets well in advance of the Paris conference. On the other hand, they are a vehicle to promote a comprehensive post-2020 global agreement that will see all parties, not just industrialised countries, contribute to climate policy.
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Climate and security were the focus of a high-level foreign policy conference held in Berlin in early June. At the core of the conference was the “Berlin Call for Action”, which sets out three concrete action areas for tackling the threats posed by climate change to peace and security, namely risk-informed planning, enhanced capacity for action and improved operational response. But what if the world doesn’t listen?
From contentious rules on carbon trading, through efforts to raise ambition to who will host next year’s summit, negotiators have a full agenda this fortnight. Climate talks resume this week in Bonn, Germany, with negotiators working to finalise the last contentious points of the rulebook for the Paris Agreement.
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