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EU pushed to take tougher climate stance

By Chen Weihua in Strasbourg, France | China Daily Global | Updated: 2019-11-27 09:13

The flag of the United Nations flutters next to a huge thermometer showing more than 36 degrees Celsius,mounted to a wall of the headquarters of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, Germany July 23, 2019. [Photo/Agencies]

Ahead of UN meeting, bloc's Parliament nears vote on declaration of emergency

The European Parliament will vote on Thursday whether to declare a "climate emergency" in order to pressure the incoming European Commission leaders to take more action over global warming just days before the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP25, opens in Madrid on Dec 2.

The Parliament on Monday started debating a motion for the declaration when members of the European Parliament, or MEPs, assembled in Strasbourg for their four-day plenary meeting.

"The next five years must be a game-changer for our climate and our environment and our actions should be driven with a sense of emergency," Dacian Ciolos, president of Renew Europe, until a few months ago known as the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, said in a statement on the group's website.

"The first 100 days of the next European Commission will be critical to deliver the right level of ambition for the Green Deal," he said, referring to the European Union's ambition to become the first continent to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. The goal was laid out by European Commission president-elect Ursula von der Leyen, who is due to take office on Dec 1.

Pascal Canfin, chair of the environment committee of the group, said in a tweet last week: "It is time to declare #Climate and environmental emergency in Europe. Two weeks after @realDonaldTrump decided to leave the#ParisAgreement and ahead of the #COP25. It would send a clear message to the rest of the world."

The Socialists & Democrats group said it wants the European Parliament to declare a climate emergency. "The EU must act together and lead by example in international climate negotiations through concrete actions and measures," it said in a statement.

Von der Leyen has been under constant pressure from MEPs to take stronger action on climate change after she was elected in July. She has since vowed repeatedly that combating climate change will be one of her top priorities.

She has said she hopes to raise the goal for the EU's cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to at least 50 percent from 1990 levels by 2030. The current goal is for a reduction of 40 percent.

Most of the EU's 28 member states have signed up to the new target. Resisting the move are Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, which prevented the bloc from promoting its stance at a UN climate action summit in New York in September.

More funds sought

Climate change is a key issue in the EU's 2020 budget as set out in a provisional deal reached last week between the Parliament and the European Council. The Parliament secured an increase of more than...00 million ($550.7 million) on investments to protect the climate in next year's EU budget, compared with an initial proposal from the European Commission.

The European Central Bank, now headed by former International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, is considering whether to include climate-change risks in future European banking stress tests, ECB Vice-President Luis De Guindos said in London last week.

Early this month, more than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries released a report declaring a climate emergency. The report, "World scientists' warning of a climate emergency", lists graphical indications of climate change and outlined six policy changes that must be made in order to tackle the problem.

So far, 1,195 jurisdictions and local governments, covering 545 million people, have declared a climate emergency. The United Kingdom became the first country to do so when its Parliament made the declaration on May 1.

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