The Kigali amendment - seeking to reduce climate-damaging HFCs - is considered a diplomatic victory. In fulfilling its pledge, India’s cooling sector has a crucial role to play. The Indian government hence seeks to cooperate with the EU to learn from their experiences, in order to advance the country’s green cooling efforts.
China is moving closer to a carbon tax for cutting emissions and away from the EU’s emissions trading model, a senior Chinese official has said.
Food is inexorably linked to many areas of policy – from climate change to sustainable development to conflict to migration. The EU has become a major player in ensuring global food security, both through its engagement in sustainable development and humanitarian assistance programmes. Daniele Fattibene argues that it should therefore develop its food diplomacy under the aegis of the European External Action Service (EEAS) and its security policy.
Europe’s regions are facing rising sea levels and more extreme weather, such as more frequent and more intense heatwaves, flooding, droughts and storms due to climate change, according to a European Environment Agency report published today. The report assesses the latest trends and projections on climate change and its impacts across Europe and finds that better and more flexible adaptation strategies, policies and measures will be crucial to lessen these impacts.
Migration, political and financial crises threaten the European Union’s very existence. But the destabilized political landscape after the US elections is an opportunity for the EU to lead by example and show leadership. Pushing forwards on pan-European energy transition and trade partnerships with China will be key to ensuring implementation of the Paris Agreement.
To date, 17 countries of the G-20—which account for 67 percent of global greenhouse gas pollution—have officially joined the Paris Agreement, bringing it into effect far sooner than anyone expected. If these countries follow through with their commitments to reduce emissions, it will represent unprecedented progress in the global effort to curb climate change. Unfortunately, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has proposed a number of policies that would have negative climate implications. In light of this, the G-20 summit in July 2017 provides an important opportunity for other major powers to resist backsliding and even to make some progress in meeting the global climate challenge.
After a change at the top, the U.S. stance on the environment is poised to take a drastic step back. In Europe, less liberal leaders are gaining momentum. Populist movements mushrooming all over the continent preach isolationism and reject hard facts as a pivot of the political agenda. Author Lou Del Bello argues that under this new, shifting political landscape, the climate movement needs to reconnect with the grassroots.
How to deal with the impact of climate change on peace and stability? What are the key climate-fragility risks to development in Africa and how can integrated policy responses be designed and implemented? Two side events at COP22 discussed entry points for addressing climate-security risks on the ground.
Assessing the positive impacts of climate action, an approach which considers the broad spectrum of social, economic and health benefits, has increasingly gained global recognition. This is due, in part, to the insightful work done by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. On this platform, Christian Friis Bach from UNECE noted on February 2016: “Taking into account such co-benefits can radically change the picture and demonstrate that action can pay off, not only in the long term, but also in the short to medium term.” With the Paris Agreement recently ratified by the European Union (EU), what is the potential of the benefits approach for achieving these new commitments in Europe?