EU demands:

More states must pay for climate protection

Drought and extreme heatwaves continued to affect many parts of the world this year (pictured: a shepherd dog on parched ground in southern Bulgaria).

(Bild: APA/AFP/Nikolay DOYCHINOV)

The environment ministers of the 27 EU member states agreed on a common position for the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Azerbaijan on Monday. The EU wants to insist on more money for developing countries. To this end, the group of contributing states is also to be expanded.

The issue of climate financing is likely to play a central role at the conference, which will take place in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku from November 11 to 22. It is about the question of how developed industrialized countries - such as the EU countries - provide financial support to developing countries for climate protection measures and adaptation to the consequences of climate change. The European Union is insisting that not only the historically industrialized countries pay in, but that other now developed industrialized countries also make their contribution. The focus is very much on China.

In the eyes of the EU states, China must make a larger financial contribution.

(Bild: APA/AFP/WANG ZHAO)

No specific amount mentioned
A specific amount that the EU would be prepared to contribute was not mentioned after the ministerial meeting. EU Climate Action Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra emphasized that both public and private money would have to be added. The money should also go to the countries that need it most.

The international community is still divided on the question of what role nuclear power should play in the decarbonization of the economy. As is well known, the EU Commission has classified nuclear power as sustainable under certain conditions. Although nuclear power is not explicitly mentioned in the position paper, it is not ruled out either.

The role of "green" nuclear power
"We should therefore focus on the forms of energy that actually make a contribution and not those that promise to do something but never deliver," said Austria's Climate Minister Leonore Gewessler before the meeting, speaking out against nuclear energy. "The thing that has delivered emission reductions in the past and will deliver them in the future is renewable energy."

(Bild: AFP)

At the last climate conference COP28 in Dubai around a year ago, a move away from fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal was included in the conclusions for the first time. In addition to renewables, nuclear energy was also assigned a role.