Climate change is a global challenge as emissions anywhere affect people everywhere. To respond to the climate crisis a rapid decarbonisation of our economies across the world is required. This is why internationally coordinated cooperation is needed. This is done under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UNFCCC.
With the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the UNFCCC COP21 Summit in Paris in December 2015 delivered the long-sought outcomes for international climate action. For the first time in history all countries agreed to take drastic action to protect the planet from climate change, to jointly pursue efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C, and to rapidly reduce emissions towards net zero in the second half of the century.
In addition, the Paris Agreement created a framework for global climate policy by providing common rules for transparency and accountability, and the requirements for regular 5-year revision of countries’ targets and commitments. The global stocktakes set in the Paris Agreement will take place every five years. They are important joint global moments to assess the adequacy of countries’ joint and individual action toward the long term goals of the Paris Agreement. Following these UNFCCC stocktakes all countries are required to set their new greenhouse gas reduction targets for the next five year period.
The requirement adopted in the Paris Agreement to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5°C demands a reassessment of the EU’s climate and energy policies, and an increase in action by all sectors. Reduction of global emissions to net zero by mid-century requires that in the EU most sectors will be fully decarbonised within the next couple of decades, and for the EU to reach net zero greenhouse gas target latest by 2040. Most importantly the EU needs to radically reduce emissions in the short term by 2025 and 2030 as well as set timelines for fully phasing out the use of coal, gas and oil.
Countries’ current climate targets (NDCs) are inadequate and lead to dangerous warming of more than 3°C.
As countries’ current climate targets (NDCs) are inadequate and lead to dangerous warming of more than 3°C, it is therefore critical that all countries improve their respective 2030 mitigation targets. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) outlined in its Special Report on 1.5°C that current global CO2 emissions need to be halved by 2030 to have a chance of keeping temperature rise at 1.5°C. Countries at the UNFCCC have jointly set a deadline for revised 2030 targets to year 2020, and again further increase in 2025.
For the European climate and energy policies to be consistent with the Paris Agreement, the EU needs to adopt a greenhouse gas reduction target of at least -65%, and revise all the related implementing legislation to speed the near term emission reductions across the EU economy. In addition to the urgent domestic emission reductions that the EU is required to do at home, the EU has a responsibility to help other countries financially to reduce their emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
CAN Europe has been working on the UN climate negotiations for more than 25 years and continues to engage actively and in cooperation with CAN International and other regional CAN nodes in the UNFCCC process.
A whirlwind COP28 has drawn to a close, leaving a trail of paradoxes in its wake. On one side, this COP exposed the undeniable influence of fossil fuel lobbies on the COP Presidency and many governments, including several European ones, as a new report revealed that at least 2400 lobbyists were in Dubai to promote fossil fuels — almost a 400% increase from last year. On the other side, the need for a global phase out of fossil fuels took center stage in negotiations and a global civil society united in the call for a fair, fast, full, funded and feminist phase out of all fossil fuels.
CAN Europe reaction COP28 outcome: Now it is the EU’s responsibility to deliver on justice, align with science and phase out fossil fuels
Statement from CAMPAIGNers to the Conference of the Parties
COP28 Midpoint: Bold Declarations Clash with Slow Progress and Unresolved Issues
EU’s bilateral partnerships on climate and energy: New impulses at COP28?
COP28: CAN Europe demands saying no to greenwashing, distractions and unproven solutions
COP28: Reaction to EU leaders’ statements at World Climate Action Summit
CAN Europe COP28 Media Briefing
The Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a yearly international climate summit. During COPs, global leaders assemble to collaboratively address climate change challenges. The Convention boasts participation from all over the world, with 198 Parties, comprising 197 countries and the European Union. COPs are the world’s highest decision-making forums on climate issues, gathering leaders all over the world to decide the future of our planet. This year, COP28 in Dubai expects to host over 70,000 people across the world leaders, civil society actors, activists, lobby and advocacy groups. Similarly to the last year at COP27 in Egypt, this year COP28 also hosts an enormous number of fossil fuel lobbyists whose voices CAN Europe and other civil society actors aim to counter. The UN has announced that at COP28, fossil fuel lobbyists need to identify themselves as such but there is still a long way to go in preventing the fossil fuel industry profiting on the destruction of our planet to have a strong say on the decisions COP will take and the fate of our planet. The controversial President for COP28, Sultan Al Jaber, who is the managing director of the UAE’s national oil company Adnoc, has said he believes fossil fuel industries must be in key climate talks.
CAN Europe participates in COP28 with a broad delegation of experts, including director Chiara Martinelli, head of climate Klaus Rohrig, international climate policy coordinator Sven Harmeling, civil society participation expert Samuel Martin-Sosa, energy transition expert Eli̇f Cansu İlhan, youth activists Margarita Delgado and Klara König as well as communications experts Daniela Pichler and Seden Anlar. On top of that, more than 50 CAN Europe member organisations with more than 80 delegates are present in Dubai, advocating for the best possible outcome of COP28.
Follow CAN Europe on Twitter and LinkedIn to get the latest updates directly from COP28 in Dubai.
| 30 November | Opening Day |
| December 1 | World Climate Action Summit |
| December 2 | World Climate Action Summit |
| December 3 | Health / Relief, Recovery and Peace |
| December 4 | Finance / Trade / Gender Equality / Accountability |
| December 5 | Energy and Industry / Just Transition / Indigenous Peoples Action Day against Fossil Fuels – everyone wear orange! |
| December 6 | Multilevel Action, Urbanization and Built Environment / Transport |
| December 7 | Rest |
| December 8 | Youth, Children, Education and Skills |
| December 9 | Nature, Land Use, and Oceans |
| December 10 | Food, Agriculture and Water Action Day to Make Polluters Pay |
| December 11-12 | Final Negotiations |
| 2 December | Joint youth voices towards climate justice with Youth and Environment Europe (lead organiser), YES-Europe, Global Youth Coalition, Generation Climate Europe, IAAS, We Are Tomorrow Global Partnership, Open Dialogues International Foundation |
| 5 December | Action Day against Fossil Fuels (everyone wears orange!) |
| 5 December | Fuelling the Climate Crisis in the Name of Development? Fossil fuel investments and the need for a fair fossil fuel phase-out by CAN Europe members BUND, Misereor and Deutsche Umwelthilfe |
| December 6 16:00-17:30 GST (13:00-14:30 CET) | Reimagining NDCs: unlocking the potential of sustainable lifestyles by Climate Campaigners (CAN Europe) |
| 8 December | Side event: Headway for adaptation with CAN member DanChurchAid |
| 8 December | Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) 2024 press conference with Germanwatch, NewClimate, CAN International |
| 9 December | Implementing the Loss and Damage Fund in Practice? with CAN member DanChurchAid |
| 9 December | Faith in action for climate justice in addressing Loss & Damage, moderated by CAN Europe director Chiara Martinelli |
| 10 December | Open Dialogue as a tool for climate action with CAN Europe director Chiara Martinelli as a panelist |
| 10 December | Action Day to Make Polluters Pay |
The Global Stocktake (GST), a crucial procedure under the Paris Agreement, is our planet’s five-year climate health check, assessing global progress in curbing temperature rise to maintain it below 1.5ºC. It means looking at everything related to where the world stands on climate action and support, identifying the gaps, and working together to agree on solutions and pathways to 2030 and beyond.
The first-ever Global Stocktake is set to conclude at COP28, and that’s why it should be the centrepiece of the negotiations. The Stocktake decision needs to encourage states to scale up their climate ambitions, including addressing the historical responsibilities of Global North and global injustice.
We need a decision for a full, global phaseout of fossil fuels. CAN Europe together with the global climate movement will be making noise on this under hashtag #EndFossilFuels.
Just recently, we got a foretaste of the likely scenario around the fossil fuel phaseout at the European Union. The debate was whether to call the phaseout full or unabated. Unfortunately, the EU agreed in their COP28 position to call for a global phaseout for unabated fossil fuels.
Calling for the phaseout of ‘unabated’ fossil fuels rather than a full phaseout of all fossil fuels leaves open loopholes to continue using fossil fuels if certain measures are taken to reduce the intensity of their greenhouse gas emissions. However, currently, there is no clear definition of abatement, and the technologies that are being promoted for abatement, such as carbon capture and storage, are yet unproven at the scale that would be needed to have a significant impact.
More positively the EU has highlighted the importance for the energy sector to be predominantly free of fossils well ahead of 2050. EU Member States also made it clear that there is no role for CCS in the energy sector and the focus should be on moving away from fossil fuel use. This is an important qualification for how the term ‘unabated’ should be interpreted, closing significant loopholes.
The EU has further clarified its position at COP28 which limits the role of abatement technologies by stating that at COP28 global targets on renewables and energy efficiency should go hand in hand with the phase-out of fossil fuel energy production and consumption.
However at the Pre-COP end of October, several EU countries signed up to the Higher Ambition Coalition statement on a fossil fuel phase-out, but others declined to do so, which is very worrying.
At COP28, all parties should agree to a rapid, just and equitable global phase-out of fossil fuels in all sectors in line with the 1.5C temperature limit by 2050 at the latest, without abatements. For the EU, this means coal must be phased out no later than 2030, fossil gas no later than 2035 and oil at the latest by 2040.
As part of the much-needed, just global energy transition, the EU must furthermore back up its verbal support for developing countries with strong financial commitments to accelerate the shift to a people-centred, fully renewable energy system.
Complementing this, it will be important to advance the Mitigation Work Programme, agree on its next steps for 2024, and use its ministerial meeting to highlight the need for fossil fuel phaseout, and increased investments and financial support for mitigation in developing countries.
Following the historic decision at COP27 to establish new funding arrangements for loss and damage, a Transitional Committee drew up recommendations for consideration and adoption at COP28. While developing these, developed countries pressured developing countries to accept a set of recommendations that do not adhere to basic principles of climate justice and equity.
The current proposal on the table includes several issues. Firstly, the fundamental problem is that there is no obligation for developed countries to contribute to the fund. As per the proposal, the World Bank, an undemocratic institution primarily led by developing countries, is set to be the interim host for the fund, but there is no clear strategy for its eventual transition. To ensure the fund delivers on climate justice it should be established firmly under the UNFCCC with its own legal personality; and it should be answerable to the parties of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement and their principles. There is no reference to the scale of funding required to address loss and damage adequately nor mention of human rights. Apart from government contributions, there is no clarity on the type of new sources of finance that are needed in the longer term to scale up the fund’s capitalisation. To tackle this, we need equitably assessed taxes and levies to make polluters pay.
However, this is now the proposal on the table and it is likely that parties will make a decision to support the recommendations in the first week of the COP.
EU Member States and the European Commission should be ready to make significant multi-year pledges at a scale of billions of USD to the new Loss and Damage fund at COP28. Finance should be new and additional public funding in the form of grants, aligned with the Polluter Pays Principle.
The current international financial architecture is not fit to address the climate crisis. Further, the collective failure of developed countries on climate finance commitments to developing countries is having a devastating impact on underrepresented people, increasing inequalities and poverty, as well as weakening global climate action on mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage, and hindering progress on the negotiations as a whole.
Developed countries have not delivered on the $100 billion annual climate finance commitment for 2020-25 made more than a decade ago, and concerns remain about it being reached in 2023 even using contributor-led methodologies which inflate figures. The EU announced ahead of COP28 its total climate finance to developing countries in 2022: this included EUR 28.5 billion in public climate finance and EUR 11.9 billion mobilised private finance. Compared to 2021 this indicates a significant increase of EUR 5.64 (24%) in public finance alone. But when public budgets are being limited and overstretched, huge concerns about where climate finance is coming from and that it is taking an even greater share of development finance budgets. The share of grants and adaptation finance has remained roughly the same from 2021, while the EU has said it wants to be at forefront of increasing and improving adaptation finance, so much more action is needed on this.
COP28 needs to ensure that developed countries keep their promises to developing countries. To ensure the collective commitment is met, the EU should scale up new and additional climate finance, in the form of grants and highly concessional finance. The EU should also ensure it delivers at least 50% of its contribution to that commitment as adaptation finance, prioritising grants.
| Act Church of Sweden | CARE Netherlands | Ecoaction | GCE (FIMCAP) | Milieudefensie | Simavi |
| ActionAid International | CBM Ireland | ECODES | Generation Climate Europe | Misereor | The Climate Reality Project Europe |
| ADRA Germany | CIDSE | Ecologistas en Acción | Generation Climate Europe / UKYCC | Nature and Youth Sweden (Fältbiologerna) | Trócaire |
| AirClim | CliMates | Environmental Investigation Agency | Green Liberty | Nature Trust Malta-FEE | WECF |
| An Taisce | CliMates Austria | Fairtrade International | Greenpeace | NGO Ecoaction | WWF |
| Austrian Alliance for Climate Justice / KOO | CliMates Madagascar | Fastenaktion | InfluenceMap | Oxfam | WWF Belgium |
| Carbon Market Watch | CNCD-11.11.11 | Fimcap | Klima-Allianz Deutschland | People in Need | WWF Switzerland |
| CARE Denmark | Dan ChurchAid | FIMCAP (GCE) | Klimadelegation | PUSH SWEDEN | YEE |
| CARE France | Danish 92 Group | Finnish Development NGOs – Fingo | Legambiente | Recourse | |
| CARE Netherlands | E3G | Fundación Ecología y Desarrollo | Mercy Corps | SEO/BirdLife & BirdLife Europe-Central Asia |
For media, please get in touch at communications@caneurope.org for requests or to be added to the CAN Europe COP28 media list.
This year, the 27th edition of the UN Climate Negotiations (COP) will take place in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt, from the 6th to the 18th of November. Representatives from countries all over the world will meet to assess the current climate situation and the next steps to take. The expectations are high for this year’s climate talks.
On one hand, it is because of the setting: since it is Africa’s turn to host the Climate Summit, with Egypt as a host and presidency country, COP27 could provide a particular platform for African and other Southern voices, and raise particular attention to the continent’s needs for climate action.
On the other hand, the expectations are high due to the multiple stepbacks on fossil fuels taken by European countries this year. After the 3 difficult years of pandemic, the war in Ukraine and its consequent economical and fossil fuel energy crisis, European countries have still not broken their dependency from damaging fuels, and still show reticence towards fully embracing energy efficiency and renewable energies.
At COP27, we need richer countries to take responsibility for their actions and to stand by their promises: we need to see more support to vulnerable countries, and to deliver climate justice; we need to break our dependency from fossil gas and move towards more sustainable options already available; we need to see the EU lead the change, supported by science and data. We need to see a true change in the path to the future, a true commitment to limit global warming to 1.5℃ (which is perfectly achievable with the means we have, here for more info) and a true commitment to deliver the fair share of financial support needed to address the climate losses and damages. Racial, financial and technical injustice towards developing countries must be addressed by the EU and all rich countries who have historical responsibility for the climate crisis.
This COP, the EU, a powerful and relatively rich block of countries, has the chance and responsibility to play a leading, highly influential role in a new geopolitical context that can’t turn a blind eye to the root cause: fossil fuels and the climate crisis. Europe needs to contribute to achieve the 1.5 goal in a fair manner: #FairFor1Point5.
PRESS RELEASES
BLOG POSTS
POLICY DOCUMENTS
MEDIA
Delegates from all across the world will gather at COP26 in Glasgow from 31 October – 13 November 2021 after last year’s summit was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This delay means we are equipped with even more scientific evidence on the state of the climate emergency humanity is facing today, such as the warnings in the latest IPCC report.
Limiting temperature to 1.5 °C by 2030, as agreed in the Paris Agreement, is still possible if governments take action and contribute with their fair share. Five climate summits after the Paris Agreement (COP21), Glasgow will be a moment of accountability for countries across the globe and especially for developed countries, including those in the EU, which are the ones that have contributed the most to causing anthropogenic climate change.
CAN Europe calls on the EU to play a leading role at the upcoming G20 as well as at COP26, committing to concrete paths to reach an emissions reduction of at least 65% by 2030, as well as halting investments in fossil fuels, phasing out coal by 2030 and gas by 2035.
Europe and other rich countries have an historical responsibility for the climate crisis. Climate action should include ambitious emissions reductions at home but also significant increases in financial support to the most vulnerable countries that are suffering the worst impacts of climate change. This is why CAN Europe urges European countries to reach 1.5 °C in a fair way that contributes to social justice within our borders and beyond.
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Blog Posts
Methane Emissions Energy Sector Effective Action Tackle Invisible Menace
What the EU Needs to Do to Advance Climate Change Mitigation Ambition at COP26
The EU’s Climate Finance World’s Largest Contributor Needs to Set the Direction of Travel
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Press Releases
EU Fails to Secure Fair Outcome for Most Vulnerable at COP26
Civil Society Calls on EU to Ensure COP26 Delivers Climate Ambition
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Media & Videos
COP26 Is Just Around the Corner: Here’s What Needs to Happen
Aligning Climate Finance to the Goals of Paris Agreement at COP26 – Rachel Simon
What Must Change for the EU’s Approach to the Climate Crisis at COP26 – Sven Harmeling
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CAN Europe Events
SPEAKERS: Representatives from UNECA and European Union, European Think Tanks Group, CAN Tanzania, SNV CO-ORGANISERS: CAN Europe, European Think Tanks Group, SNV Netherlands Development Organisation
SPEAKERS: Greenpeace, Climate Litigation Network, Client Earth, CNCD, A Sud, SFOC and CAN Europe
SPEAKERS: Energy Community Treaty Secretariat; Minister of Environment and Physical Planning of North Macedonia; Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine; CLIMA Director; Secretary of State for Energy and Mining; Senior Policy Adviser industriALL European Trade Union; Programme Manager Energy, Climate, Environment, Belgrade Open School
SPEAKERS: Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), Care International, representatives from the African Union and European Union, and other CSOs
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Contacts:
Chiara Martinelli, Director, chiara.martinelli@caneurope.org
Nina Tramullas, Communication Coordinator, nina.tramullas@caneurope.org
Rachel Simon, Climate and Development Policy Coordinator, rachel.simon@caneurope.org
Sven Harmeling, International Climate Policy Coordinator, sven.harmeling@caneurope.org
Tom Boyle, Head of Network Development, tom.boyle@caneurope.org
A key part of the Paris Climate Agreement is the provision of new and additional finance and resources (including technology development and capacity-building) to developing countries, to support their action to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
For climate finance this takes the form of a commitment by rich countries to mobilise $100 billion US dollars annually from 2020, aiming to achieve a balance between mitigation and adaptation finance, and the agreement of a new climate finance goal from 2025.
CAN Europe endorses a science-based and equitable approach to this support. Considering the scale of the climate crisis, developing countries need more support to enhance and implement their climate action and adaptation plans under the convention.
Moreover, following the equity principle, whereby countries with a higher historical responsibility and with greater capacity to act should do more, European countries need to scale up their financial support on top of their domestic emissions reduction efforts, and in line with the principles of equity and fairness. Developing countries are also in desperate need of finance for loss and damages caused by climate change impacts beyond their scope to adapt. There are an array of potential new sources for loss and damage finance, including a climate damages tax on the heaviest polluters, levies on international aviation and maritime transport, and debt relief and cancellation.
The COVID-19 crisis has hit developing countries hardest, and like the climate crisis is intensifying the structural inequalities between countries and communities.
Climate finance and support on top of existing commitments to development finance is key to ensure that people can meet their development needs, and build resilience through low-carbon solutions and adaptation measures, and should be delivered in a way which strengthens gender equality, takes a human rights-based approach and supports biodiversity objectives (for more see Climate, sustainable development and human rights).
The global financial system needs to be urgently re-orientated around climate goals, equity, and just transitions to deal with the climate crisis and growing inequalities.
As well as climate finance to support developing countries, the Paris Agreement introduced a commitment to make all financial flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development (the third long term goal of the agreement, Article 2.1c).
CAN Europe works to promote the EU and European countries to assert a progressive position in international negotiations and fora, including the UNFCCC, the G20 and G7, and to drive forward alignment of finance with the Paris Agreement in public banks, notably the European Investment Bank (EIB) and European development finance institutions.
Key issues are the phasing out of fossil fuel finance and harmful spending, the classification and accounting of climate finance, and alignment of finance with long term climate goals and just transitions toward 100% renewables and fully energy efficient energy systems.
Re-orientating public finance away from harmful activities through phasing out fossil fuel finance or pricing carbon also offer opportunities to generate new sources of revenue for climate finance. CAN Europe also works on Financing the Transition within Europe.
The devastating effects of climate change are no longer a vague possibility in the distant future, but a tangible reality that we are experiencing today. The climate crisis knows no boundaries and its impacts are affecting us all, but not equally. The most vulnerable countries have contributed the least to this crisis, yet they find themselves on the frontlines of it. Climate change and biodiversity loss disproportionately affect those least responsible for causing it: the world’s poorest 20%, most of whom are women, are responsible for less than 3% of global emissions.
In addition, many people still lack equitable access to scarce natural resources, including safe and sustainable energy.
Choosing pathways to sustainable development means taking an integrated approach to meeting human development as well as climate, natural systems and biodiversity goals, and living within our planetary boundaries.
Climate change and sustainable development are intrinsically linked; without acting on climate change, global development objectives will be reversed, and without pursuing development pathways that are truly sustainable, we will not avoid runaway climate change.
The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, launched in 2015, set out a range of 17 sustainable development goals for both developed countries and developing countries.
Grounded in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and international human rights treaties and emphasising the responsibilities of all states to respect, protect and promote human rights, it envisages “a world of universal respect for human rights and human dignity, the rule of law, justice, equality and non-discrimination”.
There is a strong emphasis on the empowerment of women and of vulnerable groups such as children, young people, persons with disabilities, older persons, refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants.
In the Paris Agreement countries agree to respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity in their climate action. The UNFCCC Gender Action Plan also aims to advance knowledge and understanding of gender-responsive climate action as well as women’s full, equal and meaningful participation in the UNFCCC process.
To deliver on sustainable development and support just transformation of societies, the European Union needs to take an integrated approach to the Paris Agreement, biodiversity objectives, and Agenda 2030 across its development and climate finance, and across all international and domestic policies. All European policy needs to be assessed for coherence with sustainable development in developing countries to ensure it does not have negative impacts.
In supporting developing countries and their communities to take climate action, the EU’s development and climate finance should strengthen gender equality, prioritise approaches which protect and restore nature, and support human rights-based approaches to climate action plans.
Supporting the circular economy, green and smart cities, and decentralised community-owned renewable energy projects run by local and micro-level actors offer future-proof sustainable development pathways which work for people and the planet.
In developed economies, such as the EU, sustainable development should translate into ambitious domestic policies that drastically move our economies away from high-carbon consumption. This shift needs to happen across numerous sectors in the EU; from energy to agriculture, and from finance to infrastructure.
In the coming decades, European countries will have to transition major sectors of their economy (industry, agriculture, energy, transport etc.) to drastically reduce harmful greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while at the same time protecting and restoring natural carbon sinks. Trade policy must help facilitate such a transition or at the very least not stand in the way of achieving it.
At the moment, however, EU trade policy too often restricts or contradicts climate policies. For instance, EU trade agreements facilitate the export of highly polluting cars and chemical products, which do not even have to comply with EU environmental standards when being exported.
The transition of agriculture is contradicted by multiple recent trade agreements that keep the EU and its trading partners on the tract of export orientation and specialisation, rather than encouraging them to diversify. As a consequence, there has been a massive increase in industrial livestock production and chemically-intensive monocultures of crops.
CAN Europe calls for trade policy to be fundamentally changed so that it contributes to climate mitigation instead of contradicting it
There are also a number of trade rules that restrict the ability of governments to take decisive climate action. Some of these restrictions are written into the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO); others are contained in the EU’s plurilateral and bilateral trade and investment agreements. Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) allows foreign investors to sue if a state action lowers the company’s profit expectations.
ISDS has for instance been used by a coal power plant owner in the Netherlands to threaten with a billion Euro compensation claim against the Dutch coal phase-out law. This claim was made on the basis of the so-called Energy Charter Treaty. In order to avoid this treaty to impede the transition to a clean energy system, European countries should withdraw from this treaty and exclude ISDS amongst each other.
CAN Europe calls for trade policy to be fundamentally changed so that it contributes to climate mitigation instead of contradicting it. Trade agreements should not maximise profits for corporations, but rather maximise benefits for people and the planet. To this end, we make a number of suggestions in our position paper on trade policy.
Brussels & Montevideo, 6 December 2024 — Today, the EU and the Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) concluded the EU-Mercosur trade deal negotiations,
3 December 2024 — The Energy Charter Conference finally adopted its proposal for modernising the climate-wrecking Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). Negotiations to reform the ECT aimed
Baku, 24 November 2024 — COP29, full of drama throughout the two weeks, has concluded in the early hours of Sunday, approving the New Collective
On 18 November 2024 CAN Europe organised a press conference during COP29 in Azerbaijan, where a panel of experts reflected the developments during the first
Baku, 18 November 2024 — As the second week of COP29 kicks off, the climate finance negotiations are stuck moving at a snail’s pace. The
“Milei’s climate denialism and ‘chainsaw policies’ combined with the outdated EU-Mercosur trade deal is a recipe for disaster. The EU-Mercosur deal is based on a text from 25 years ago and totally out of sync with the reality of the climate crises we face today. ‘Mileinomics’ coupled with the EU-Mercosur deal could cause critical ecological spillovers globally, as it will further threaten South America’s second-largest forest, the Chaco forest, also one of the planet’s largest carbon sinks”, said Audrey Changoe, Trade and Investment Policy Coordinator at CAN Europe.
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CAN Europe empowers civil society organisations to influence the design and development of effective climate change policy in Europe, both in the European Union as well as in its Member States and in European countries outside the EU.
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