Climate Action Commissioner reaffirms EU’s leadership

On Day 3 at COP29 in Baku, the High Ambition Coalition, led by the Marshall Islands, have reaffirmed their climate commitments.

Hilda Heine, President of Marshall Islands even managed to sound upbeat about the incoming US administration at the coalition’s plenary session:

“I will communicate with President-elect Trump about the importance to our shared security, as their bases in the Marshall Islands of taking the climate crisis seriously. I think, as I said, the Paris Agreement is a robust process. We don’t think that the election result will necessarily put a stop to the process that is underway. In the United States, states and cities that are already actively moving this process forward.”

On the same occasion, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, sounded distinctly more critical on the issue:

“I believe that the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement by the United States will be a retrogressive step. The United States has an obligation, a moral obligation, perhaps more so than any other, to provide leadership and climate funding to address the issue of climate change because of its historical emissions.”

He added, “they need to provide funding to clean up the mess that they created over hundreds of years. And we also need to provide funding as a form of climate justice, because at the end of the day, United States, like other large polluting countries, would have created a tort against all of humanity. And for them to walk away from their obligation, I think that is totally inappropriate.”

Several leaders addressed the summit today, including Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who emphasized the need to phase out fossil fuels and highlighted nuclear fusion as a potential game changer. Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama went off-script, questioning the purpose of the summit if leaders continue with business as usual.

Even greater role for Europe with a Trump-led US?

For the European Union, European Council President Michel already noted yesterday that, in 2023, the EU and its 27 member states contributed around 29 billion euros in climate finance.

But what role can the EU play here at COP29 when it comes to pushing for more ambitious collective climate goals? Euronews put that question to the EU Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra.

“We have been one of the leaders on climate financing we have been doing more than our fair share. We’ll continue to do so and yet at the same time we are saying to interlocutors from across the globe that those with the ability to pay more also should take that responsibility”.

And with Trump wanting the US to withdraw from the Paris agreement, could this encourage the EU to step up its commitments?

“We have been leading on this topic and we’ll continue to lead and we’ll do our best to engage proactively with the new American administration we have always had a great collaboration with American administrations, from the left and the right and we’ll continue exactly with doing that”.

Unofficial draft proposals already circulating

But increasing climate action can also lead to more competitiveness, as Hoekstra explained:

“So what we see is that if you want to decarbonize it is a climate strategy but it’s also an economic and growth strategy and new sectors are developing. Think about the wind industry, think about the solar industry so there’s huge economic potential. What we will do is incentivize and create the space for companies to do so and we will more ferociously defend a level playing field within the EU.”

Negotiations have entered a delicate phase here in Baku, with unofficial draft proposals already circulating and divisions, pushbacks, and differing ambitions, the most frequently asked question in the last few hours is: what would a successful COP look like.