How to walk the Green Deal talk in EU external cooperation? - Harnessing development cooperation to foster European climate leadership

Event Type
Panel discussion (cancelled)

Location / Date
Brüssel, 18.03.2020

European Think Tanks Group (ETTG)

The recent UN climate change conference in Madrid (COP25) was widely perceived as underwhelming in its failure to agree on key matters to support the implementation of the Paris Agreement and to ensure more ambitious climate action. All the while, the European Commission released its ambitious Green Deal and the European Parliament resolved to make the European Union carbon neutral by 2050. These steps nourish hopes for a revived European leadership in multilateral climate governance. Yet, advancing climate action and demonstrating global leadership must not stop with domestic policy. It also requires stronger attention to matters of EU external cooperation and specifically calls for “Paris- compatibility” in all of the EU’s development cooperation.

This event will ask specifically, how the EU may harness external action to raise climate ambition in the run up to COP26 in Glasgow and beyond 2020. Research and recommendations of the European Think Tanks Group underscore the strong interlinkages between climate action and development policy and the tremendous potential of climate-proofing development cooperation that is yet to be tapped. Indeed, ensuring that EU development cooperation is fully compatible with the objective of halting global warming at 1.5°C is essential to sustainable development. To that end the event will discuss ways to ensure EU coordination for improved policy coherence at the nexus of climate action and development cooperation, adequate dialogue and planning with EU partner countries, commensurate financing and clear definitions and guidelines on external activities that are Paris- compatible or that may need to be adjusted or even discarded. The event will thus cast a timely look at what the Green Deal and ambitious climate action mean for EU partner countries and how development cooperation may underpin EU climate diplomacy towards COP26 and beyond.

Agenda

Registration and lunch reception

Welcome

• Geert Laporte, ETTG Director

Keynote

• Gabriela Iacobuta, DIE, lead author of the ETTG policy brief

Introduction of panel and guiding questions by moderator

• Simon Maxwell, Former Director of the Overseas Development Institute

Roundtable panel discussion

• Suhayfa E. Soobedar, Minister Plenipotentiary, South African Embassy (tbc)
• Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou, Member of the European Parliament, DEVE / EPP
• Nicola Di Pietrantonio, DG DEVCO, Unit 6 - Sustainable Energy and Climate Change
• Lola Vallejo, Climate Programme Director, IDDRI
• Thibaud Voita, Head of Knowledge Products, NDC Partnership
• Gabriela Iacobuta, Researcher, Klimalog project, DIE

Q&A and discussion with the audience
Wrap up & take home messages
Time for networking over coffee and tea

Hinweis

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