Climate change conference in Doha

The Greens/EFA regrets the lack of progress by the EU on both mitigation and ensuring the continuity of climate finance, and fears this could have serious implications for the credibility of the EU but also the overall UN efforts to tackle climate change. The Greens therefore,

Durban Platform for Enhanced Action

1.      Insist the EU honour its commitments and continue building international alliances towards a new multilateral legally binding regime which will ensure mitigation action to limit global warming to well below 2°C, with an objective of staying below a 1.5°C global mean average increase compared to pre-industrial levels. The EU must also continue developing means to help developing countries deal with the effects of climate change, whilst ensuring robust accounting, monitoring, reporting, compliance and enforcement; 2.      Urge the EU negotiators to build alliances to ensure a timeline for negotiations that can deliver essential elements of the future 'protocol, legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force' as early as possible and for the agreement to be completed no later than 2015; 3.      Understand that ensuring adequate climate commitments for 2020 is a critical part of coming to an agreement on the new instrument;

Kyoto Protocol - 2nd commitment period

4.      Call on the EU to set out its commitments on both 20% and 30% reduction targets for 2020 for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, ensure immediate application of the amendments, and remain open to a 5-year second commitment period;  5.      Regret negative influences within the EU institutions that have blocked an agreement on restricting carry-over and use of surplus AAUs from the first Kyoto commitment period, undermining the environmental integrity of the second commitment period;

Climate finance

6.      Stress the urgent need to avoid a financing gap after 2012 when the fast-start finance period ends, and for the EU to demonstrate leadership on scaling-up new and additional climate funding from 2013 to 2020; 7.      Ask that ETS auctioning revenues and revenue from new sources of public finance (financial transaction tax, shipping/aviation levies) be earmarked for financing of climate action in developing countries from 2013 8.      Call for rapid progress in financing performance-based action to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) to contribute to closing the mitigation gap for 2020; whilst opposing any proposals to include this sector as offsets in industrial emissions trading markets;

Mitigation gap

9.      Underline the evidence from the European Environment Agency showing that EU nations have achieved their 20% climate target 9 years ahead of schedule and emphasise the necessity for the EU to immediately move to a 30% domestic CO2 emissions reduction target for 2020 to reach its 2050 target of 80-95% reductions in a cost-effective manner; 10. Reiterate the urgent need for progress in closing the gigatonne gap which exists between the scientific findings and the current Parties’ pledges, and call for more efforts to increase the level of climate ambition in commitments, compared to the commitments in the Copenhagen Accord for 2020, respecting the principle of a ‘common but differentiated responsibility’, 11. Regret the Commission intention to suspend compliance on aviation ETS until the ICAO assembly in 2013 and insist that the EU continues to work towards an ambitious global agreement at international level for emissions from both aviation and maritime transport to curb the sectors' emissions and create revenue for international climate finance; 12. Stress the urgent need to address emissions from HFCs, black carbon, methane and other short lived climate forcers, to contribute to closing the global mitigation gap and remain consistent with the overall climate objective;