Ribera affirms that the Paris Agreement to curb global warming is an “existential matter” that cannot be breached

The fourth vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, does not consider a “no” in response to the possibility that the international community may not meet the objective set in the Paris Climate Agreement, because in her opinion it is an “existential issue” and a challenge that must be managed to limit the increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

During her participation in the event ‘Financial Times Climate Summit’, together with her counterparts from Singapore and Denmark, the vice president has defended that Spain is working to prepare its position at the Glasgow Climate Summit (COP26) to be held at the end of the year in the Scottish city (United Kingdom), within the framework of the European Union.

The objective is, as he stressed, that the EU’s position is “ambitious” and “as credible as possible”, so that a consistent medium- and long-term decarbonisation path is set that, in addition to facilitating the necessary transformation, does not fail to pay attention to social needs.

In the forum he has defended that the climate change law that is “about to” approve the Spanish Parliament will mean a “significant change” of the energy system but has also defended that the Government is undertaking other important reforms in terms of land use, biodiversity and social policies.

In the face of COP26, Ribera has said that his expectation is to be able to complete the full operational implementation of the Paris Agreement, but above all to do so with “credible” medium- and long-term decarbonization paths of the countries so that governments can demonstrate that they are “committed” to the path of decarbonization.

In this context, he has trusted that the “consistent” response must come from formal agendas of governments, which must give “strong signals of change” to all actors to achieve precisely these long-term paths and, for this, has insisted that medium-term commitments to 2030 are urgently required, consistent in decarbonisation and from all countries.

For the minister there is “a new air” within the scenario of the climate negotiation, because despite being a difficult year, there is also “good news” that should help facilitate the acceleration of the commitments of all countries.

“In general terms, we hope to be credible but at the same time, in a context of pandemic, we are all trying to see how we reactivate economic activity and how we can better invest in the context of stimulus packages,” reflected the fourth vice president, who has claimed to work “with climate consistency in both mitigation and adaptation” because she is confident that the race to achieve zero emissions “can be accelerated”.

However, he has admitted that at the moment the international community is “far away” from what is necessary so he celebrates that the COP26 Presidency is “trying to move the different wings of the countries to achieve a high level of ambition”.

Despite the fact that the energy sector is moving “very strongly” and mobility in a “dramatic” way, for Ribera there are still “many other aspects” that give room to be more ambitious in the communication of national contribution commitments. In that sense, he believes that it is important to have a sufficient and credible ambition on the part of the United States to facilitate “everyone” to move forward.

On the other hand, he has defended that part of the “responsibility” of governments is to create the conditions to accelerate this action and has given as an example the “ambitious” objectives set by Spain in its climate change law and in the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan for 2030 of which he has said that “at the beginning” people said they were “too ambitious” and now they ask them for “more”.

Finally, regarding the need to achieve individual responsibility in this challenge, he believes that the pandemic should mean a change in behavior after observing this year the links of climate change with health. “This is very important and is a good way to put this on the agenda: the links of climate change with biodiversity, with air quality,” concluded the minister, who believes that these arguments should be used to explain both mitigation and adaptation.

Source: The Energy Newspaper