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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Linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the Latin American landmass has often been presented as one of the holy grails of development for the region. While China’s idea of a ‘Nicaraguan Canal’ has made headlines globally, another major infrastructure project is in the works further south: the Bi-Oceanic Railway. The idea has already spurred transboundary environmental cooperation, but the public is still in the dark.
Using a progressive environmental security concept can help to tackle a range of environmental issues related to armed conflict, such as deforestation, loss of biodiversity, tensions over natural resources, conflict pollution, and damage to ecosystems. The environment can actually play a role in peacebuilding. This article briefly outlines why such an inclusive and environmental protection approach is needed and how it could be implemented.
Climate action and free trade have been perceived as contrary agendas for a long time. Despite more and more governments seeing tremendous potential for win-win outcomes, aligning trade and climate has become harder. This is due to changes in our current geopolitical landscape, as Christian Hübner explains in light of the upcoming G20 summit.
Human activity has caused the temperature of the Earth and its atmosphere to rise by about 1°C above pre-industrial levels, triggering fundamental changes to the planet’s physical and social landscapes. On 8 October an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that temperatures were rising faster than expected, and that 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels could occur as early as 2030.