This negotiation process under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), began over thirty years ago in 1992 in Rio. Since then, it has been always conflict-ridden and until now quite ineffective. In 2002, ten years after the Rio Summit, Jacques Chirac, French President at the time, made headlines when he said at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg that "Our house is burning and we are looking the other way". However, we have continued to do so and greenhouse gas emissions have risen by almost a third since 2002. Since 1992, the EU’s emissions have fallen by a quarter, but at the same time those of China, which now accounts for almost a third of the world total, have increased more than fourfold. 

Implementing the Paris Agreement 

In 2015, in Paris, we thought we had finally reached a global agreement to limit climate change to 1.5°C. However, since eight years, we have not yet finalised its implementation and global emissions have not decreased. Despite growing urgency, rising international tensions make even more difficult to find an agreement today. Yet there is no alternative: global cooperation is the only viable solution to the climate issue, which knows no borders.  

“There is no alternative: only through global cooperation can we solve the climate issue, which knows no borders.” 

Since 1992, the EU has been at the forefront of these efforts. In Dubai, we aim to secure an ambitious Global Stocktake and agree to ban unabated fossil fuels and fossil fuel subsidies, double energy efficiency efforts and triple global renewable capacity. Additionally we are also working to increase climate finance for adaptation and a green transition. What makes the task of achieving a fair distribution of efforts between countries particularly complex is that climate change, and its essential antidote, the green transition, are making winners and losers and shaking up the global balance of power.  

The difficulties of fossil fuel producing countries 

Reserves of fossil fuels - coal, gas and oil - are gradually running out and becoming more expensive to exploit. However, there is still enough left to push humanity towards a catastrophic scenario: a world with temperatures exceeding + 3°C that would be largely uninhabitable. In other words, we need to decide not to exploit a large proportion of existing fossil fuel reserves and stop looking for new ones. This obviously poses serious difficulties for fossil fuel-producing countries, which often derive a significant proportion of their wealth from them.  

Those countries are of course legitimately concerned about their prospect in a world without fossil fuels. And they have the means to put the brakes on this process, especially as unanimity is required in the UNFCCC process. To gain their cooperation, it is crucial to present a positive outlook for the post-fossil fuel era. For this purpose, we have been proposing partnerships with many of these countries around developing renewable energies and green hydrogen and bilateral trade in non-fossil fuels products. 

The raw material needs for the green transition 

At the same time, the green transition will require considerable quantities of raw materials such as lithium and rare earths, as well as many specific products and components, such as batteries and photovoltaic panels. The availability of these raw materials and the production of these components will also profoundly reconfigure global geopolitics.  

Although China alone still burns more coal than the rest of the planet, it has gained a significant lead in green technologies thanks to massive subsidies for its producers. Since 1992, China has been considered a developing country in the UNFCCC process. However, given the leading role it now plays in the world while being the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, it is legitimate to expect that China will assume, alongside industrialised countries, a central role in the fight against climate change. this encompasses ambitious action at home and globally, particularly in helping the poorest and most threatened countries to leap-frog the green transition.  

The Inflation Reduction Act, a powerful instrument  

With the adoption of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, the world's other major emitter, the United States, has finally given itself a powerful instrument to accelerate the green transition and develop green technologies domestically. However, this has not been without raising concerns among its partners, particularly in Europe, due to the protectionist nature of the measures adopted. 

Europe, for its part, has few reserves of the raw materials essential to the green transition and has fallen behind in many technologies central to this shift. We therefore need to catch up. We have begun to do so in recent years thanks to Next Generation EU and REPowerEU. We also need to diversify our supplies to prevent shifting our dependence on fossil fuels, particularly from Russia before the war of aggression against Ukraine, to an over-reliance on China for materials and components critical to the green transition.  

Establishing long-term partnerships 

This means establishing long-term partnerships with countries producing critical raw materials, particularly in Latin America and Africa. However, we must avoid falling back into the "extractivist" logic of the 20th century: such partnerships must promote the industrialisation of our partners by adding value to the raw materials extracted on their territory under optimal environmental conditions. Therefore the Commission proposed a European Critical Raw Material Act and we have already concluded such partnerships with 8 countries.   

The risks in the Arctic region 

Climate change, even if we manage to limit it, will also radically alter the world's geography. In particular, the melting of ice and permafrost will make it easier to access and exploit territories that have until now not been settled. This will be particularly true of the Arctic and Antarctic. This risks giving rise to increased rivalry and to ecological damages in very fragile territories.  

The European Union is strongly committed to preserving these regions and limiting ecological risks. However, in the context of major tensions between the EU and Putin’s Russia, which shows little concern for ecology and  international law and has a clear imperialist mindset, this issue is likely to become a significant additional bone of contention. Melting sea ice is also changing shipping routes, in particular by opening up an ice-free passage north of Russia for shipping traffic from China and Asia, a potentially major game-changer for international trade.  

Rising sea levels and water scarcity 

At the same time, rising sea levels threaten many coastlines where a large proportion of the world's population is concentrated, particularly in the poorest countries. Rising temperatures and droughts will also force their inhabitants to migrate or make major changes to adapt to this new environment. By 2050, over 1 billion people will have insufficient access to water and more than 200 million could have to move. 2022 was already a record year for forced internal displacement due to extreme weather events. This dynamic is already fuelling conflicts in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and many other regions around the world. According to the UN, 12 of the 20 countries most vulnerable to climate change were in conflict in 2020. Climate change is clearly a major challenge for the stability of our neighbourhood and the security of our borders.  

Yet most of these countries bear only a limited responsibility for climate change, with low levels of emissions today and even lower ones in the past. 600 million Africans still lack access to electricity. Opposing their increased energy consumption due to climate change concerns is of course out of the question.  

To prevent these countries from exacerbating climate change by increasing their greenhouse gas emissions, we need to give them a substantial support to adapt to climate change. This includes in particular changing agricultural practices, and embarking in the green transition without repeating our past mistakes. Significant financial and technological transfers are needed in this endeavour. This is indeed the focus of many of the projects we are implementing as part of the Global Gateway. One of the few pieces of good news in recent years will facilitate this work: the cost of green technologies has fallen sharply. Nonetheless, the effort required to help them remains substantial.  

Climate finance is key 

With €28.5 billion in 2022, the EU, its member states and the European financial institutions are already the largest contributors of public climate finance to developing economies and developed countries are finally on track to meet the goal set at Copenhagen in 2009 of $100bn annually. Yet, we must now think beyond 2025, when the current pledge ends. We have to go much further.  

“It is high time to align private and public financial flows with the Paris Agreement and go from billions to trillions of climate finance.” 

It is high time to align private and public financial flows with the Paris Agreement and go from billions to trillions of climate finance. International Financial Institutions and Multilateral Development Banks need to be reformed to better support global public goods. The new Loss and Damage Fund must also acquire the needed financial firepower. The first substantial pledges announced in Dubai are encouraging. Here also, will China be an indispensable partner.  

Europe now accounts for only 5.6% of the world's population and 7.5% of global emissions. However, as the first industrialised region in the world, it bears a major historical responsibility for the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere over the last two centuries as a result of the combustion of fossil fuels.  

Strengthened EU’s climate ambitions 

With the European Green Deal, we have strengthened the EU’s climate ambition. By 2030, we want to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55%, produce more than 42.5 % of our energy from renewable sources and increase energy efficiency by at least 11.7 %. We want also to become climate-neutral by 2050.     

To achieve this, EU’s climate action is based principally on putting a price to CO2 emissions. However, if this were to result in carbon-intensive activities simply relocating outside Europe, the so-called carbon leakage, it would mean the EU losing jobs without achieving any emissions reduction globally.  

That is the reason why the EU’s carbon price is complemented by a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to ensure that the most carbon intensive goods imported in Europe are also subject to a comparable carbon pricing. It is not protectionist. It is simply the necessary counterpart of our ambitious emissions reduction measures to guarantee that they are effectively a win for the planet. 

The rationale for EU deforestation law 

While we decarbonise our own economy, we cannot wash our hands of the greenhouse gas emissions caused outside the EU by our consumption of imported goods. This is why we are also greening our trade policy. We want to ensure, in particular, that the products we import no longer cause deforestation, one of the greatest threats to climate and biodiversity.  

I know that the requirements stemming from this EU law are creating tensions with some of our partners. We are ready to support them implementing these measures and address together the common challenge of deforestation. 

I am well aware that an additional effort to help developing countries to adapt to climate change and embark on the green transition is difficult to achieve for the EU and its member states. This is particularly true at a time when significant investments are needed for Europe’s own green transition, and while we are facing  wars at our borders and the need to invest more in our defence.  

“The stability of our neighbourhood and the security of our borders in the long term will depend for a significant part on the efforts we make now to help our neighbours adapt to climate change and embark on the green transition.” 

However, the cost resulting of our inaction would certainly be much higher than this additional cost. The long-term stability of our neighbourhood and the security of our borders will depend significantly on our current efforts to help our neighbours adapt to climate change and embark on the green transition. It will be decisive for Europe's role in the world of tomorrow.