The Minister of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Isabel García Tejerina, has assured that “it is time to take action” in the fight of all countries against climate change, during her speech today before the Plenary of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP20).
“We are at a key moment in the international negotiation of climate change. The challenge that governments face here in Lima to lay the foundations of the new agreement to fight climate change is the challenge of our entire society,” García Tejerina stressed.
With one year to go before the Paris Climate Summit, the minister advocated “accelerating efforts to achieve meeting points, those meeting points that should unite us all in this fight against climate change”.
García Tejerina stressed the importance of “building a negotiating text that will allow us to adopt (in Paris) next year an agreement by which, in a framework of international cooperation and solidarity, all countries commit to ambitious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions”.
“Without a doubt, it is time to take action,” said García Tejerina, who recalled that “it is up to us, the States, to demonstrate that we live up to the trust that citizens have placed in us and, therefore, we must all commit to reducing global emissions, in accordance with our responsibilities and capacities”.
After detailing Spain’s main objectives at this United Nations Conference on Climate Change, he said that all countries, and especially large economies, should present, as agreed last year in Warsaw (Poland) during COP19, their contributions to the Paris Agreement in the first quarter of 2015.
SPAIN’S FIRM COMMITMENT
In this sense, he stated that the commitment of the Government of Spain to the great challenge posed by the fight against climate change is “firm” and that this is demonstrated by the measures implemented so far.
Specifically, he stressed that Spain has given a new approach to its climate change policy, which focuses on promoting reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in our territory, with very clear objectives: to promote the transition to a low-carbon economy and create employment and economic activity.
“Today more than ever our country is aware of the importance of moving towards a new growth model, based on clean technologies, which reduces emissions and allows us to generate economic activity and quality employment,” said García Tejerina.
SPAIN CONTRIBUTES 149 MILLION TO THE GREEN FUND
He reiterated Spain’s commitment to international cooperation and the promotion of sustainable development in the field of the fight against multilateral climate change and detailed that Spain has already committed 149 million dollars to the Green Climate Fund.
Finally, the minister referred to Spain’s expectations for this Summit in Peru and advocated that together they manage to close this negotiating text that will serve as the basis for achieving the new agreement of 2015.
