Informal international meeting of environment and climate ministers begins today
Today (Sunday, 2 May) Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mexican President Felipe Calderón open the Petersberg Climate Dialogue. Federal Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen and his Mexican colleague Juan Elvira will jointly chair the high-level meeting. Germany and Mexico invited environment and climate ministers from more than 40 countries to attend informal discussions from 2 to 4 May on the Petersberg near Bonn. They will discuss the next concrete steps in the run-up to the UN Climate Summit at the end of this year in Cancún (Mexico), with a view to defining and implementing the results of Copenhagen in Cancún.
Federal Environment Minister Röttgen: "I am looking forward to two and a half days of intensive discussions. At the Petersberg Dialogue, we want firstly to determine what form the different stages on the road to a new climate agreement must take. To supplement this, we want to present concrete climate initiatives, for the need to implement climate protection measures is more pressing than ever. We must have both: an ambitious UN climate agreement and the swiftest possible implementation of climate protection in practice."
Referring to the EU contribution Röttgen said: "The EU has good reasons, including economic ones, to rethink its current reduction offer. I will strongly advocate that the EU raise its target from a 20% to a 30% reduction by 2020, thus making the EU a pioneer in the transformation towards a low-emission economy. Germany has already adopted a reduction target of 40%."
The Petersberg Dialogue, which was announced by Federal Chancellor Merkel in Copenhagen, will bring together a group of more than 40 states in which all the important country groups are represented, based on both geographical location and affiliation to important negotiating blocs of developed, developing and newly industrialising countries.
In addition to the overarching questions on the form and substance of a new agreement and the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the agenda also contains the following key topics:
- Reduction of greenhouse gases in developed and newly industrialising countries
- Establishment of an international system to monitor mitigation activities
- Support for adaptation measures in developing countries
- Financing of international climate protection
- Further development of the carbon market, including emissions trading schemes
- Better cooperation on the diffusion of climate-friendly technologies in developing countries
- Reduction of deforestation in developing countries.
Some countries will also present climate initiatives, such as projects to reduce deforestation or technology projects to improve climate protection. For as well as pressing forward with the UN negotiations, it is also vital to advance the concrete implementation of climate protection measures.