EUROPE: Last week the G-7 states met in Elmau, Germany, to discuss the most pressing issues of our time, one of which was – of course – climate change.
The G-7 acknowledge clearly that the world will need a binding core agreement on climate change and that all countries will have to be put in a position to choose a sustainable development path that keeps the average temperature below a 2 degree rise.
Climate change is an urgent challenge. We need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by between 40 and 70 per cent by 2050 and to near zero by 2100 to have a reasonable chance of staying in the 2 degree safe zone. That’s a huge task, which we need to start now. No country is immune to the damaging impacts, direct and indirect, of climate change.
The member states of the European Union are aware that we need drastic changes to worldwide CO2 emissions. This is not a problem that the developed world alone can fix. But the foundation for reaching the global goals is our own commitment. We have accepted that developed countries should take the lead. That is why we have taken determined action and reduced EU emissions by around 19 per cent from 1990 levels while GDP has grown by more than 44 per cent over the same period. We have committed to at least a 40-per-cent reduction by 2030 in the context of the international climate change negotiations. But most of the future growth in global emissions will come from the developing, not the developed, world.
That is why the G7 also discussed the question of financing to combat climate change. This also we cannot do alone, but we agreed to set aside US$100 billion annually from 2020 onwards to reach the climate change targets. We know that for many developing and small-island states this is a crucial point.
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