Global Greens Statement on ratifying the Paris Agreement

Statement by the Global Greens

On the occasion of the Signing of the Paris Agreement

New York, 21 April 2016

As Green Parties of the world, we stand united in our commitment to addressing climate change and implementing the Paris Agreement with its undertaking to constrain global temperature increase to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C.

We recognise that, in order to succeed, global emissions will need to reduce by 33% below current pledges by the year 2030 to achieve a 2°C world, and by 44% for a 1.5°C world, according to the UN Environment Programme.

We recognise that these targets must be translated into an ambitious reduction of greenhouse gas emissions within the remaining Global Carbon Budget as estimated by the IPCC.

We recognise that to have just a 50:50 chance of preventing a 2°C rise in global temperature, 80% of global fossil reserves of coal, oil and gas must be left in the ground. This is why we strongly support the fossil fuel divestment movement and the call by Pacific Island nations in the Suva Declaration for “a new global dialogue on the implementation of an international moratorium on the development and expansion of fossil fuel extracting industries, particularly the construction of new coal mines, as an urgent step towards decarbonising the global economy.”

Green parliamentarians around the world therefore undertake to introduce in the national Parliaments, in which we are represented, domestic legislation to give practical effect to the Paris Agreement.

Such action will be country-specific in each case and will be comprised of at least two parts.

First, an initiative to leave specific carbon reserves in the ground.
Second, an undertaking to phase out, or abolish, national fossil fuel subsidies.

State Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in signing the Paris Agreement must be held to the commitments they have made and must take national action consistent with restricting and discouraging fossil fuel extraction in order to live within the limited remaining global carbon budget.

The Global Green parties are committed to that end.

Undertakings by Green MPs:

Australia:

Richard di Natale MP, Australian Greens

Transform our energy system by building at least 90% clean energy by 2030 and phase out dirty fossil fuel power stations with a $1 billion Clean Energy Transition Fund overseen by a new government agency, RenewAustralia. See the full plan here.
Place an immediate ban on new coal and gas, ban fracking and urgently secure jobs in rehabilitation for mining workers who are losing their jobs. Read our After Coal plan.
End fossil fuel subsidies to big mining companies, saving $13 billion. Details here.
Rapidly reduce Australia’s climate pollution, with a 60-80% cut on 2000 levels by 2030, and net zero by 2040.
Media Contact: for Senator Di Natale – Jennifer Faerber, [email protected], (+61) 438-376-082.

United Kingdom:

Caroline Lucas MP, Green Party of England and Wales

“Cancel tax breaks for oil and gas extraction, introduce a ban on fracking, and invest in a just transition for North Sea oil and gas workers as part of a new industrial strategy for the UK to become a global leader in offshore renewable energy generation.”
This builds on Caroline’s comments in the House of Commons on the Greens’ strategy for a just transition from fossil fuels and towards 100% renewable energy.
Media Contact: for Caroline Lucas: Matthew Butcher: [email protected], (+44) 7885-459-904.

Germany:

Motion tabled by the Members of the German Bundestag Annalena Baerbock, Bärbel Höhn, Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, Oliver Krischer, Christian Kühn, Steffi Lemke, Peter Meiwald, Dr Julia Verlinden, Harald Ebner, Matthias Gastel, Kai Gehring, Stephan Kühn, Nicole Maisch, Friedrich Ostendorff, Claudia Roth, Markus Tressel, Dr Valerie Wilms and the Alliance 90/The Greens parliamentary group

The German Bundestag calls upon the German Federal Government to make climate protection binding by:

introducing an ambitious Climate Protection Act that sets annual targets for the power generation, transport, buildings, industry and agriculture sectors up until 2050, and backs them up with concrete climate protection measures. This will create a sense of direction and a secure environment for the planning of investment and product decisions, maintain industrial value creation and ensure necessary structural decisions are no longer postponed any more;
ending power generation from coal in the next two decades, e.g. by means of the introduction of CO2budgets for fossil power plants;
repealing the cap on the expansion of renewable energies, maintaining the feed-in tariffs for onshore wind energy and photovoltaics, dismantling barriers to citizens’ energy, and investing in storage facilities, networks and load management;
working for European emissions trading to be genuinely reformed, i.e. two billion surplus certificates to be withdrawn, for the emissions cap to be based on the obligations entered into at Paris and the climate targets that have been set, and for the free allocation of emissions certificates to be ended;
introducing a minimum price for CO2 at the national level until the introduction of a European minimum price;
limiting exemptions from energy duty, the special equalisation scheme and subsidised grid charges to a few industries that really do suffer disadvantages in international competition, and no longer encouraging high energy consumption in the producing sector with extensive exemptions, as a result of which necessary innovations are not being pursued;
transforming Germany’s building stock to make it climate neutral in the next 25 years, among other things by means of a comprehensive refurbishment programme for whole residential quarters, by means of a Renewable Energies Heat Act based on the model of the legislation in Baden-Württemberg that also introduces an obligation for existing buildings across Germany to use renewable heat, by means of the expansion of short-distance heating grids and the funding of 10,000 heat stores at the local authority level, and by means of broad, independent energy saving advice for private citizens;
making a complete change of direction in the transport sector within the next two decades. To this end, it must usher in the phasing-out of fossil combustion engines, strengthen railway services and, apart from bringing in clockface railway timetabling, link up all transport services seamlessly in a user-friendly fashion, and put in place the requisite infrastructure for buses, commercial vehicles, taxis and other vehicle fleets in urban areas;
putting an end to a European agricultural policy focussed on industrialisation and surpluses, in particular when it comes to animal products, by means of the introduction of area-based livestock farming, by means of the use of appropriate forms of funding to ensure the target of 20 per cent of farmland managed organically is attained by 2020 and by means of steps to ensure agricultural subsidies are disbursed in future according to the principle of ‘public money for public services’;
incorporating climate protection into the German Basic Law.
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