Federal Environment Minister Schulze on inaugural trip to Paris
Today, German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze and her French counterpart, Nicolas Hulot, met for the first time and discussed Franco-German environmental cooperation. The two ministers agreed to make tackling climate change and conservation of biological diversity key areas in their joint efforts at European level.
Minister Hulot and Minister Schulze explained: "Tackling climate change is one of the biggest challenges our society faces. Franco-German cooperation in this area is vital, also for the EU, which must maintain its leading role at international level in implementing the Paris Agreement. We will continue to work together with our EU partners on raising the level of ambition of EU climate policy. The EU will have to swiftly review whether it can increase its NDC for 2030 in order to help achieve the global 2 degree and 1.5 degree target of the Paris Agreement. As agreed by the last European Council, the European Commission must submit a proposal at the start of 2019 so that the EU can, in early 2020, present a new long-term climate strategy for mapping out the way towards climate neutrality.
We want to further strengthen the EU’s role as a global leader in climate action. We therefore propose that Germany and France establish an interministerial working group on European and international climate issues. The working group should develop measures and approaches for achieving our long-term climate goals and potentially increasing EU climate targets for 2030. The group will also help coordinate ambitious positions in various international bodies."
The conservation of biological diversity is also a key joint concern of the German and French ministers. They agreed to work at European level towards reinforcing the two instruments central for this area, namely, reducing the use of pesticides and reforming EU agricultural policy.