Excellencies, colleagues,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.

The Candidate Countries Türkiye, Montenegro*, Albania*, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, and Georgia, as well as Andorra align themselves with this statement.

[As we heard today] the current El Niño has peaked as one of the five strongest on record, and is expected to continue to impact the global climate in the coming months. Exacerbated by climate change, it disproportionally affects vulnerable countries and increases humanitarian needs – at a time that resources are already severely stretched.

Let me highlight three ways in which the EU and its Member States have taken action to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather events.

First: disaster preparedness. The EU has been closely monitoring the global impacts of El Niño. The developing situation raised alerts in our early warning systems enabling us to rapidly react to these alerts by providing support to the most affected areas. For example, the EU mobilised 3.5 million euros for the immediate response for those affected by the devastating floods in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya.

The EU and its Member States will continue to contribute to disaster preparedness for all, including to the Secretary-General’s Early Warning for All Initiative, with several EU Member States supporting initiatives such as CREWS^[1] and the SOFF^[2]. Robust early warnings will enable us to scale up anticipatory and early action. We also work closely with Regional Climate Centres, and National Meteorological Services in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to support their capacity to understand, manage and reduce risks.

Second: cooperation. While humanitarian aid is adapting to climate change – by adopting risk-informed approaches, scaling up anticipatory action and disaster preparedness – humanitarian aid alone is not sustainable. We need to strengthen the synergies between development, peace, humanitarian and climate assistance, to address the root causes of disasters and protect vulnerable communities from this vicious cycle. This is key to building community-level resilience, and ensuring no one is left behind.

Third: funding. The EU remains committed to increasing the climate resilience of the most vulnerable communities in humanitarian contexts. This requires more development and climate funding reaching vulnerable and fragile contexts to build resilience, including through localization. We will continue to increase our funding for adaptation and climate resilience, with a focus on the most vulnerable countries and on building back better. We also support Climate and Disaster Risk Finance and Insurance mechanisms to protect vulnerable populations against residual risks.

In closing, the EU and its Member States remain committed to help prevent new and reduce disaster risk globally, in line with the Paris Agreement and the Sendai Framework. We do this in a ‘Team Europe’ approach through the EU Green Deal, Global Gateway and the EU Adaptation Strategy, with a view to strengthen our partner countries’ abilities to deal with climate change impacts and the resulting loss and damages.

Thank you. 

[1] Climate Risk & Early Warning Systems

[2] Systematic Observations Financing Facility