Ministers need to move off the 3-degree warming pathway

Climate action| Global transition

Early review of INDCs key to success for the Paris negotiations

The Ministers attending the high-level segment of the UN climate talks in Paris starting today need to ensure that the Paris agreement does not lock us on a path to catastrophic 3°C warming.

Environment ministers representing the 196 parties have today started high-level negotiations to craft a final version of the Paris agreement. The draft negotiating text, while more clear in terms of options after a week of negotiations, is far from clear on its level of ambition.

“The Ministers have a clear choice: either they meaningfully address the inadequacy of current climate targets, or they make a deal that puts the world on a path to catastrophic 3°C warming” – Wendel Trio, Director of Climate Action Network Europe said.

As it is widely acknowledged that the current pledges, the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions will result in 3°C of warming, an early revision of these plans is necessary. CAN Europe advocates for the revision of the current, inadequate targets to start just after the Paris summit and to be concluded by 2018 at the latest. Once the Paris agreement has entered into force in 2020 and countries are already implementing these INDCs, revising them becomes much more difficult.

“Locking in these current inadequate climate targets for the next 10 to 15 years would mean giving up on limiting warming below 2°C, let alone below 1.5˚C, a target backed by a majority of countries, including France and Germany” – Trio added. “The EU needs to live up to its claims of being the leader of climate action and ensure that countries are requested to revisit their inadequate Paris pledges latest by 2018. This is the only way to ensure that the higher level of ambition that is needed will be fully integrated in the domestic policy development that will happen after Paris.”

Contact:

Ania Drazkiewicz, CAN Europe Communications Coordinator, ania@caneurope.org, +32 494 525 738
Wendel Trio, CAN Europe Director, wendel@caneurope.org, +32 473 170 887, +33 6 63 41 97 14

Notes:

Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe is Europe’s largest coalition working on climate and energy issues. With over 120 member organisations in more than 30 European countries – representing over 44 million citizens – CAN Europe works to prevent dangerous climate change and promote sustainable climate and energy policy in Europe.

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