17/10/2017
The EUROCLIMA+ Regional Meeting "Promoting Climate Action” is held. The initiative will provide €80 million in funding for climate actions in Latin America
About a hundred attendees, including representatives of Latin American governments, European agencies that work on climate change-related topics, the UN Environmental Agency, CEPAL and representatives of financial institutions took part in the Regional Meeting of the EUROCLIMA+ Programme in Santiago, Chile.
The three-day meeting, inaugurated by the Chilean Minister for the Environment, Marcelo Mena and the Ambassador of the European Union Delegation in Chile, Stella Zervoudaki, brought together 18 Latin American countries that belong to EUROCLIMA+, an initiative that receives €80 million in funding for climate actions in sectors prioritised by the governments and to strengthen their ability to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change.
During the opening ceremony, the Ambassador of the European Union in Chile emphasised that “the signing of the Agreement in Paris in 2015 marked a turning point in the multilateral commitment to joining forces to preserve the planet”. The European Union and its partners wish to lead this process and to implement effective actions to meet these ambitious targets.
Zervoudaki also emphasised that “in the case of Latin America, the EU has increased tenfold the budget available for regional cooperation on environmental sustainability and climate change”.
Chile´s Minister for the Environment stated that holding this regional meeting in Santiago is another demonstration of his country´s commitment to climate change.
“It is time”, said the Secretary of State, “to move on to decisive joint climate action by our countries and EUROCLIMA+ offers an excellent opportunity for collaboration between the European Union and the countries of Latin America”.
This underlined the words of the European Commissioner for the Environment, Miguel Arias Cañete, who said in Brussels that “The Paris Agreement was a remarkable, perhaps unique exercise in collective responsibility to slow down global warming to well under 2 degrees; 195 parties working together to establish the most efficient vehicle for fighting climate change”.
About EUROCLIMA+
EUROCLIMA+ is a new EU programme that promotes environmental sustainability and the development of resilience to climate change in Latin America, especially to help those who are most vulnerable. It is based on the successful EUROCLIMA programme (2010 – 2016), which grew out of high-level agreements between Latin American governments and the EU, but it goes beyond this to provide funding for projects in particular sectors defined as being priorities by the countries in the region.
