Vendredi 9 novembre
Cérémonie de clôture Salle plénière - 13.00-14.00
Voir les photos de la cérémonie de clôture
The 2nd European Development Days provided a forum for debate, discussion and knowledge-sharing about the inextricable linkages between climate change and development. At the Closing Ceremony, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, Cuba’s First-Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, reminded participants why it is important to act now. He said that “little had been done” and the situation today is a lot more critical than the meeting in Rio de Janeiro 15 years ago at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.
Parrilla gave a sobering snapshot of the devastation done to the planet thus far and made an impassioned plea for the richer countries to take up their responsibilities: “The mitigation... and adaptation... strategies would be wishful thinking if there is no change in the untenable production and consumption patterns of the wealthy societies, which are mainly responsibly for the environmental damage visited upon the whole planet . . . the rich countries must bear the brunt of mitigation.”He set the stage for partnership and cooperation of all nations: “Rich and poor inhabit the same exhausted planet. We should all save ourselves or nobody will be saved. Despite our differences, we are bound by a common fate... international cooperation is the only rational and viable way.”Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, summed up some of the major themes of the three-day European Development Days:
- Climate change is no longer a hypothesis but a reality.
- Climate change will disproportionately affect those least responsible for the phenomenon.
- Climate change can no longer be perceived as just an environmental issue.
- Climate change is no longer an issue of the future as its effects are already becoming evident.
“If we don’t include climate change in the development equation we will lose much of what we have already invested,” he said. Michel reiterated his proposal to create a global loan mechanism to fund initiatives for climate change mitigation and adaptation and called upon the world community to compensate developing countries for protecting their natural environments.Echoing the comments of many participants during the 2nd European Development Days 2007, Andrej Šter, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Slovenia, noted: “Least developed countries and small island nations will be the most affected by climate change despite having contributed the least. For those who lack the capacity to adapt, we must step up to help.” This would include development assistance in priority areas such as adaptation, monitoring, food security, disaster relief, education and the development of clean energy, he said. The latter would include technology transfer to ensure low greenhouse gas emissions in the energy, transportation and agricultural sectors. “We believe that the best adaptation is mitigation with development,” Šter said. Francisco Nunes Correia, Minister for Environment, Spatial Planning and Regional Development, Portugal, called for what he believes must be unprecedented levels of international cooperation and integration of public policies to address climate change. He too recognised that countries and regions are unequally equipped to confront the problem. “It is important to intertwine development and climate change policies,” he said. “The paradigm of the development model must be changed.”Both Šter and Nunes Coreia called attention to the importance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, and the EU-African Union Summit in Lisbon, both coming up in December 2007. The Bali conference is the latest step in the effort to develop global standards for carbon emissions after the Kyoto accord runs out in 2012. Šter noted that the EU-African Union Summit is “an appropriate forum” to discuss initiatives that fuse development and climate change policies.