Last Friday, the European Union has submitted its formal promise on greenhouse gases cuts to the United Nations ahead of the climate change talks starting in December.
As the first major economy to agree its position, the EU called on the US and China to follow its lead, in order to ensure a successful outcome of the UN climate summit; an effective, legally binding global climate change agreement with emission reduction commitments from all countries.
“We expect China, the United States and the other G20 countries in particular to follow the European Union and submit their contributions by the end of March,” Miguel Arias Cańete, EU Commissioner for Climate and Energy, told reporters after a meeting of EU environment ministers in Brussels.
According to the US-China climate agreement from last November, the United States has pledged to cut its emissions to 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025, and China, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, announced to cap emissions by 2030 or earlier if possible.
French Energy Minister Segolene Royal commented on the European agreement which had to reached by March 20 at the latest: “A very important step was taken today. This is a decisive, historic stage.”
She also said that Europe was taking up its responsibilities as host of the 2015 Paris climate conference.
The EU’s official contribution is a target of an at least 40 percent cut in emissions by 2030 compared to 1990s levels.
For the complete article, please see Global Call for Climate Action.
The impact of climate change is posing a growing threat to peace and security. Germany is therefore putting climate and security on the Security Council’s agenda.
Russia’s economic development minister warned last week that the EU’s plans to deploy a carbon tax at the bloc’s borders will not be in line with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, just as Brussels doubled down on the idea of green tariffs.
Few places have suffered more from the COVID-19 pandemic than southern China, the region where the novel coronavirus was first detected in the city of Wuhan. But it turned out that the pandemic is not the only calamity to befall south China this year. The region has been inundated by heavy rainfall since late May, creating a risk of catastrophic flooding.
Natural resources-based conflicts are sometimes made complex by non-climate push and pull factors, like unemployment and political tension. These factors should be taken into account when developing and implementing a peacebuilding strategy, making sure all stakeholders are at the table – including those fueling the conflict. The online workshop ‘Integrating peacebuilding and climate change mitigation efforts in natural resource management’, organised by the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) and adelphi, looked into this complex issue.