Events

Date & Time: Tuesday 10 February 2009, 14:00 – 16:00
Venue: EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation (Tokyo office, Japan)

Organised by: EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation

Overview: 2009 will be a crucial year for the global climate change negotiations. The world is expected to agree on further international action to tackle climate change, at the Copenhagen climate change conference in December.

Much work remains to be done before Copenhagen. The EU has thus far been leading the global climate discussions and has underlined this leadership with the adoption of the climate change and energy package in December last year. Furthermore, a new Communication was published last month to address key elements that will be crucial for a successful outcome of the Copenhagen negotiations and the need to further develop and improve global carbon market. Among the topics discussed in the Communication are: the targets for developed countries; appropriate action to be undertaken by developing countries; and finance that will need to be foreseen to support this action.

In this seminar, Mr Jürgen Lefevere, policy coordinator for international climate change negotiations at the European Commission, introduced the European Commission’s new Communication “Towards a comprehensive climate change agreement in Copenhagen” and present the EU’s views on the negotiations that should lead to an international agreement in Copenhagen. In doing so, he also touched upon the results of the Climate Change Conference held in Poznan and discuss the EU's climate and energy package that was adopted in December 2008 which is designed to help Europe transform into a low-carbon economy.

The seminar was joined by speakers from Japanese Ministries of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and of Environment (MoE) to present the Japanese views on the direction of international climate change negotiations towards Copenhagen.

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