Commission secures ambitious EU negotiating mandate for COPs

A hummingbird approaches a wild flower — © Anchor Lee, Getty Images

On Monday at the Environment Council in Luxembourg, the Commission secured ambitious negotiating mandates for the upcoming COP29 Climate Conference, the COP16 Biodiversity Conference, and the COP16 Desertification Conference.

EU environment ministers also exchanged views in preparation for the final fifth negotiating session for an ambitious Global Plastics Treaty.

Climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification, land degradation, and pollution are all interdependent and aggravate existing challenges to sustainability and resilience. They threaten the planet's health and human well-being worldwide and disproportionately impact local communities.

The EU is committed to working with partners to address these multiple crises and accelerate a global, just and inclusive green transition.

It will also push for increased action at the global level and work to secure a successful outcome during the three international conferences and the negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty.

COP16 priorities

Decisive action within this decade is critical to make peace with nature. The COP16 Biodiversity Conference is the first major stocktaking opportunity since the historic 2022 Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework agreement when 196 countries decided on a roadmap to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.

Monday's Council conclusions on the UN Biodiversity Conference COP16 confirm the EU’s commitment to the full and swift implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework. They note that solid decisions must be taken at COP16, notably with regard to:-

Addressing biodiversity loss and climate change in an integrated manner and fostering the accelerated implementation of nature-based solutions;
Finalising a solid framework for planning, monitoring, reporting and review;
Resource mobilisation and the operationalisation of the multilateral mechanism for benefit sharing from digital sequence information;
Addressing biodiversity loss and climate change in an integrated manner and fostering the accelerated implementation of nature-based solutions;
Putting in place a network of centres for technical and scientific cooperation, and;
Adopting a strong programme of work for matters concerning Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

The EU will maintain its commitment to double external financing for biodiversity. We have been deploying funds through bilateral, regional and global programmes to support partners in delivering on the Global Biodiversity Framework.

Over the past two years through the European Green Deal, the EU and its Member States have made progress in sticking to their international commitments on nature and biodiversity.

Under the ambitious Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the EU has recently adopted the comprehensive Nature Restoration Law with its binding targets to restore degraded ecosystems. This provides a strong basis to deliver on international commitments and will be supported by other major actions such as the ‘Fit for 55’ package for climate neutrality and the 8th Environment Action Programme to 2030.

However, more work remains to be done, in the EU and worldwide, to achieve impact on the ground, as the Earth approaches irreversible global tipping points driven by nature loss and climate change.

COP29 priorities

The destructive impact of the climate crisis has never been more evident and our response to it has never been more necessary. COP 29 must achieve an ambitious outcome building on the commitments made in Dubai last year.

For its part, the EU will assert its continued leadership in the process by maintaining political momentum with regard to increasing global efforts on ambition and implementation with a view to keeping the 1.5°C goal within reach.

It will be crucial for Parties to reconfirm their commitment to implementing the ambition of the agreement reached in Dubai at COP28 in the UAE consensus, where countries agreed to phase down fossil fuels. This must lay the groundwork for the next round of more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (national climate action plans) ahead of COP30 in Brazil.

Climate finance is set to be a key topic in negotiations. Crucial to a successful outcome will be achieving significant progress on defining the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for supporting developing countries in their climate actions from a floor of $100 billion per year.

Another priority for Baku is to complete the negotiations under Article 6 on international carbon credit trading, as well as the urgent need to make substantial progress on building resilience through adaptation to the growing impacts of climate change.

UNCCD COP16 priorities

The upcoming COP16 under the UN Convention for Combating Desertification (UNCCD) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, will be important for strengthening implementation and deciding on the global response to address drought. For the EU, effective drought resilience and integrated drought risk management are important priorities. 

Joint and coherent solutions to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution are critical, including upscaling nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches.

Global Plastics Treaty negotiations

To address the aggravating problems of global plastic pollution, UN Member States agreed in 2022 to establish a legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) was mandated to conclude negotiations by the end of 2024.

The fifth and hopefully final session of the intergovernmental negotiation committee (INC-5) is scheduled to take place in Busan, Republic of Korea, from 25 November to 1 December 2024.

The global community is unlikely to achieve its objective of ending plastic pollution unless more stringent and coordinated actions harmonised at the global level are implemented. This is why the EU is calling for an agreement with obligations for action that tackle plastic pollution at all stages of the plastic value chain.

In particular, the EU is calling for a comprehensive lifecycle approach to plastics with restrictions and bans on certain chemicals from plastic polymer production to waste management and final disposal.

This approach aims to prevent plastic pollution in the marine and other environments of concern as well as problematic and avoidable products. The EU also insists on global criteria and rules for circular and sustainable product design.

Background

From October 21 to November 1, the COP16 on Biodiversity will take place in Cali, Colombia. While progress has been made since 2022, when 196 countries adopted the historic Global Biodiversity Framework, much more needs to be done.

Global biodiversity loss continues to accelerate at unprecedented levels. Almost one million species are currently at risk of extinction. Human actions are destroying healthy ecosystems, and consequently threaten food security, resilience to climate change, clean air and water, productive soil and the many other services that depend on them.

Half of global GDP depends on direct and indirect use of biological resources and ecosystem services. There is a clear economic case for preserving and restoring nature, as also outlined by President von der Leyen in her keynote speech at the DLD Nature conference.

From 11 to 22 November, the 29th UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, 194 countries agreed to submit climate action plans - Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) - which set out individual emissions reduction targets. Collectively, these NDCs should contribute to the objective of keeping the average global temperature increase below 2°C and as close as possible to 1.5°C by the end of the century.

Reports from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) keep warning that the world is set to reach an average temperature increase of 1.5ºC level already within the next two decades and that only the most drastic cuts in greenhouse emissions from now would help prevent an environmental disaster.

The EU continues to work with its international partners to push for more ambition in the new NDCs, which must be submitted by the next COP in 2025.