EU nations to ask prime diplomat to extend local weather motion

By Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union international ministers will name on the bloc’s prime diplomat to scale up efforts on local weather change this yr to assist clinch more durable emissions-cutting targets from particular person nations, a draft doc as a consequence of be adopted on Monday mentioned.

Practically 200 nations agreed finally yr’s COP26 local weather summit in Glasgow, Scotland, to set more durable emissions discount targets in time for the subsequent U.N. local weather convention this November.

The goal is to bridge the hole between nations’ pledges and the far quicker emissions cuts wanted this decade to cease the world heating past 2C or 1.5C above pre-industrial ranges, which scientists say would unleash disastrous local weather penalties.

Overseas ministers from EU nations will on Monday urge the bloc’s most senior diplomat, excessive consultant for international affairs Josep Borrell, to scale up local weather diplomacy, based on a draft of their assembly conclusions.

“The council invitations the excessive consultant, in shut cooperation with the Fee and EU member states, to proceed and scale up an energetic local weather diplomacy and cooperation with companions within the run-up to the COP27, to set extra formidable targets,” based on the draft, which might change earlier than it’s revealed.

The EU struck local weather offers final yr together with an $8.5 billion settlement with america and different nations to assist South Africa section out coal quicker – a deal seen as a attainable blueprint for local weather funding in different nations.

The draft mentioned the EU ought to discover different partnerships earlier than COP27 with nations closely reliant on coal energy era or mining.

EU nations and the European Parliament will this yr negotiate a raft of recent insurance policies to chop EU emissions extra rapidly, a few of which can have worldwide ripples – together with the world’s first carbon border tariff, imposing emissions prices on polluting items imported into the EU.

That has unnerved nations, together with Russia and China, though Brussels has mentioned nations with their very own carbon pricing insurance policies might dodge the border levy.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett; Enhancing by John Chalmers and David Holmes)