Climate COP Troïka "Roadmap to Mission 1.5: Driving the next generation of climate action and ambition" - Address by Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs (New York, 26 September 2024)
Ministers,
Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
Ambassadors,
Colleagues,
This year, we were convened for a Summit of the Future. Actually, what we are talking about is a threat of the present time: climate change kills, climate change impoverishes and climate change destroys.
I would like to thank the Climate COP Presidencies Troika for convening us today to make progress in the fight against this scourge.
We owe it to all our populations, all of our fellow citizens, to be effective. Therefore, we need to set a clear course. The 1.5°C goal is our compass. That is a demanding goal but not one that is totally beyond our reach. If we hope to achieve it, we must take action immediately. And to prepare, at the latest by the Belem COP, enhanced nationally determined contributions that are commensurate with the issue. We need to implement the Paris Agreement.
Significant strides were made at COP28 when it was jointly decided to phase out fossil fuels. That was vital but it is also vital to actually make this transition in concrete terms.
France and its European partners are working with determination, which involves a considerable effort to deploy low-carbon and low-emission energy technologies. France has committed to phase out coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and gas by 2050. We call on all Parties to set out and comply with timelines to phase out fossil energy sources. The G7 has started to do this with the phasing out of coal. It needs to do more and other big emitters should follow suit.
At COP29, an ambitious new climate finance goal needs to be adopted to support developing countries.
France has fully contributed to the current collective USD 100 billion goal, providing a record €7.6 billion of climate finance in 2022, including €2.6 billion dedicated to adaptation, and €7.1 billion in 2023. Every time we have contributed high and above commitments taken nationally, surpassing goals.
Now that we have collectively achieved the USD 100 billion goal, it is time for a financing boost. That is what French President Emmanuel Macron proposed in Paris in June 2023 with the Paris Pact for Peoples and the Planet. All the finance sources – public, private and innovative instruments – need to be mobilized.
The ambitious road map set out in the Paris Pact for Peoples and the Planet has produced tangible progress for the climate. I am thinking of the climate-resilient debt clauses implemented by the World Bank and its peers, as well as the international taxation task force launched at COP28 that Brazil has joined today.
COP30 in Belem is crucial and we must now begin preparing for it with determination. I call on all Parties to publish nationally determined contributions that reflect the decisions made at COP28. They should be ambitious, cover all economic sectors and all greenhouse gases, be science-based and rooted in a timeline to phase out of fossil fuels.
EU Member States are currently working on defining our 2040 climate target based on a European Commission proposal of a 90% cut in emissions. The EU will continue to show the highest possible ambition to deliver on our commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050.
France stands with Brazil to make COP30 the COP of ambition. All our diplomatic firepower will be focused on this goal, alongside all our partners and the United Nations.
And I am pleased to announce that we will host a high-level event in early 2025 to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement. There is only one way forward and that is to scale up the level of ambition on a par with the legitimate expectations of our populations. Let us not get distracted.
Thank you.