The European Union's leaders will arrive at a global climate summit next week with a vague promise to soon announce a new emissions-cutting target, following a face-saving deal struck by ministers on Thursday evening.
The United Nations has called on world leaders to present their climate plans for 2035, a requirement under the 2015 Paris Agreement, at a meeting in New York next Wednesday, News.Az reports citing Politico.
But EU governments have struggled to find the consensus required to agree on the plan, known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC) in U.N. jargon. Earlier this week they acknowledged they would miss the end-September deadline for the new targets.
To avoid showing up empty-handed in New York, countries resorted to drafting a “statement of intent.”
After lengthy negotiations, the bloc’s 27 environment ministers on Thursday agreed on a two-page missive to the U.N. promising to deliver an NDC before the COP30 climate summit begins in November. The target will fall between 66.25 percent and 72.5 percent of a 1990 baseline level of CO2 emissions.
The European Commission and Denmark, which currently leads negotiations among EU governments, hailed the agreement as a show of unity.
“The EU is and will remain a global climate leader,” said Danish Climate Minister Lars Aagaard. EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra insisted that Thursday’s agreement “allows us to confidently walk into New York next week.”
Not everyone saw it that way. “The EU environment ministers’ statement of intent shows weakness and indecision at a time when Europeans need courage and clarity from our leaders," Mary Robinson, the former Irish president and member of the Elders group of former world leaders, said in a statement.
Thursday’s hard-fought agreement also only kicks the can down the road for a few weeks until ministers meet again to agree on the formal NDC. The drawn-out negotiations — which resulted in minimal tweaks to the statement — signal difficult talks ahead.
