EU ministers reach agreement on Paris climate conference

Today the Environment Council of EU Ministers reached an agreement on the EU mandate towards the COP21 negotiations - the Global Climate Conference to be held in Paris in December.

Environment Minister Leo Brincat today addressed the first formal Environment Ministerial Meeting in Brussels organised by the Luxembourg Presidency.

Brincat said Malta strongly believed that the EU should continue to lead by example and speak with one voice on climate issues even with other countries.

He expressed Malta’s fears that the EU can only continue to play a prominent role in negotiations if it engages and communicates better with third countries to understand even more their needs and their potential, while also keeping its priorities clearly on the table.

The Minister stated that Malta believes that the coming weeks will be crucial for the success or failure of COP 21 in Paris, because everything can go haywire in the run up to the global conference unless negotiators and political decision makers move ahead at the same pace and adopt the same narrative.

“We are equally duty bound to ensure that other developed countries will lead by example as the EU has done. We should do our utmost to look at climate finance from a more holistic and dynamic perspective, since we consider climate finance as one of the core elements of the Paris agreement,” he said. “Particularly, since it should support and help countries to adapt to climate change’s current and future impacts while enabling low carbon development especially by unlocking mitigation potential.”

He went on to add that speaking with one voice can prove to effectively stimulate the achievement of these aims.