Wednesday, 07 October 2015 06:00

EUROCLIMA strengthens cooperation between the European Union and Latin America to address climate change at the regional level


At the opening of the V Regional Seminar EUROCLIMA, representatives of the European Union and Latin America said it is time to addressing climate change, focusing on the poorest population, which would be the most affected.

During the opening ceremony, on October 6, 2015, Neidy Cruz, Deputy Director General of International Cooperation of the Mexican Secretariat for Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), stressed that "there is no Plan B because we have no Planet B. This is the time to confront the challenge of climate change, a goal that seems unreachable but can be achieved through triangular cooperation".

Also, the Ambassador of the European Union in Mexico, Andrew Standley, stressed the importance of the issue of climate change for Latin American and European countries.

"We are at a crucial time and less than three months before the COP21 in France. All eyes and hopes are in Paris, where we have the challenge and the last chance for a new binding agreement to slow global warming. The COP21 has to be successful", said Standley.

Jean-Paul Joulia, Head of Unit for Regional Programs in Latin America and Caribbean and the Directorate-General of International Development and Cooperation of the European Commission, underlined the efforts done by EUROCLIMA to support countries through collaboration.

"At the regional level, EUROCLIMA has the support of the European Union by 16.4 billion euros between 2010 and 2016 in order to seek the integration of strategies and measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change, in public policies and development plans at national and subregional levels in Latin America".

Joulia underlined that the European Union seeks to strengthen cooperation with Latin American countries; a total support of 300 million euros for the period 2014-2020 in currently being defined.

He noted that "the COP21 will be crucial to achieve the framework to work in the future, especially to mitigate the damage to the population in poverty, which would be more vulnerable to suffer. Our efforts should be directed to them", Joulia said.

 

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