Additional plans to meet goals on climate change
BERLIN: More urgent and ambitious action is needed if the world wants to meet its commitment of limiting the rise in average global temperatures to 2ºC, the leaders of Germany and France said yesterday.
Addressing environment ministers in Berlin, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande called on other nations to submit clear and formal promises on cutting greenhouse gases ahead of a year-end UN summit in Paris aimed at achieving a new deal on global warming.
“We will see in Paris that more engagement is needed to really achieve the 2ºC goal than what we currently have on the table,” Merkel said in a speech to the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, which she set up in 2010 to allow for informal discussions ahead of larger UN meetings after the failure of climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009.
Merkel believes industrialised nations need to commit funds to help developing countries cope with the side effects of climate change such as flooding and drought, if they want poorer countries to back a global deal.
She said Germany aimed to double its climate financing by 2020 compared to last year, by doubling aid from its budget to
4 billion (R53bn) annually and increasing funds available from KfW state development bank to 3 bn.
Developed nations have committed to mobilise by 2020 an annual $100bn in climate finance that is “new and additional” to existing funding. However, only about $10bn has been pledged so far.
It is important that the first climate development projects are set up before Paris, said Merkel.
In a joint statement, the two leaders also called for the EU’s Emission Trading System (ETS) to be extended to other regions to help the transition towards a carbon-free economy this century.
The system works by giving power plants, factories and airlines in Europe an annual allowance for every ton of heattrapping gas emitted. However, a surplus of allowances has depressed their price on the ETS and made it cheaper to burn coal than to switch to greener fuels. – Reuters