15 March 2010, Brussels, Belgium

The Council of the Environment Ministers of the European Union met in Brussels to debate their strategy for international climate negotiations. During the meeting, EU Environment Ministers adopted conclusions on climate change and biodiversity, as well as a follow-up strategy to the UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen last December.

The conclusions sets out the EU's views on the outcomes of Copenhagen and on the next steps to be taken towards achieving the EU's objective of a legally binding global climate agreement for the post-2012 period which, the Council highlights, is becoming more urgent. The steps outlined concern both the UN negotiations which will restart next month and the implementation of the Copenhagen Accord.

In the conclusions, EU Ministers re-asserted their willingness to quickly develop guidelines, rules and modalities for REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, including conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks). They further welcomed initiatives to facilitate decision making on REDD+ at the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 16) in Cancun, Mexico, including the agreement on targets to reduce gross tropical deforestation by at least 50% by 2020 compared to current levels and the halt of global forest cover loss by 2030 at the latest.

Ministers also stress the importance of accelerating the development, deployment and diffusion of environmentally-safe and sustainable low-carbon technologies, and call for the allocation of resources as part of fast-start finance to actions related to such technologies, including possible pilot actions both on adaptation and mitigation.

In addition, Ministers reaffirmed the EU’s and its Member States’ commitment to contribute EUR 2.4 billion 'fast start' financial assistance to developing countries annually in 2010-2012 to enhance developing countries’ capacities to address climate change.

However, there was no consensus about whether the EU should raise its targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions. The EU has committed to a 20% emissions cut below 1990 levels by 2020, and to scaling up this reduction to 30% only if other major economies make similar moves to do their fair share of the global effort. While some European countries are taking the approach that the EU must first come up with a methodology to analyse how other countries' pledges compare and with a new impact assessment of how much it would cost Europe to reduce emissions further, others think it is in Europe's own interest to move to 30%.