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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