Brussels, 25 March 2024
Good evening, thank you very much for your patience and for your tenacity.
Let me start by warmly thanking the Belgian Presidency for the all the work it has done on climate.
Alain and your team, as I have said this morning, have done an truly excellent job on the putting all the files related to climate, but also just transition, adaptation at the centre stage. That is tremendously important.
This morning, we started by discussing our proposal on managing climate risks. Our current progress on adaptation simply is not keeping up with the impacts. At the same time, the risks are manageable – if and only if we do manage to work together.
There is also a clear business case for it. Our studies show that with 1 euro invested in prevention, you could save up to 14 euro in repairs. And given we see more adverse effects of climate change on our continent, it is something we should absolutely pursue.
The discussion with our Member States also shows that there is broad recognition of the urgency to act and a clear desire to continue the conversation and to make sure we put things into practice.
Having said that, this does not mean our work on decarbonisation and on planning for our national goals needs to stop. Rather on the contrary. Mitigation and adaptation will continue to go hand in hand. We need accelerate in both.
As you can imagine, therefore, it was good that we also had an exchange with the Member States on the National Energy and Climate Plans.
We are heading in the right direction towards our 2030 targets. However, there are also gaps which do need to be addressed. If you add it all up, current measures lead to an overall greenhouse gas emission reduction of roughly 51% by 2030. Of course, this should be 55%.
It implies that Member States also need to increase your ambitions under the Effort Sharing and the LULUCF Regulations. Progress on setting out adaptation goals is also something that would require further attention in the plans of most Member States. Further efforts are needed, and at the same time, I’m optimistic, given the state of conversations we are having that, from the draft plans to the final plans due before summer, we will make sure we fill in the remaining gaps.
Let me also briefly mention that the NECPs should focus on strengthening our autonomy and our competitiveness. It is of great importance that we do make sure that all these things increasingly go hand in hand.
Next to this, we also had an exchange on the just transition. And I would like to thank a range of ministers, but particularly those from Czechia and Slovakia for having put this on the table and making it once again so explicit. Because it fully subscribes to the views of the Commission.
We do need to continue with climate ambition and make sure we bridge that, we marry that with a just transition and with competitiveness.
We will continue the journey in each of these three domains.
We are really looking forward to continuing to work together, not only with the Presidency, but also with the Member States.
Thank you.
Source – EU Commission