"De EU moet een voortrekkersrol spelen" (en)

A follow-up of last week’s UN meetings and a progress check ahead of the major Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. That is the summary of today’s meeting between UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon i and Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt i, in his capacity as President of the Council of the European Union. Ban Ki-moon was clear to emphasise the EU's role in leading the rest of the world towards a global climate agreement in December.

”We are both deeply concerned over the state of the international climate negotiations. We need to speed up the negotiation process before the world’s leaders meet at the UN conference in Copenhagen. It is actually only 68 days now,” said Fredrik Reinfeldt after his meeting with Ban Ki-moon.

Both emphasised the importance of last week’s climate summit held by the UN, which was attended by over 150 political leaders. Chinese President Hu Jintao and President of the USA Barack Obama i, representing two of the most important polluting countries in the world, were among the participants. According to Ban Ki-moon, this gave a new impetus to the climate issue, not least as it showed that there is a political will to reach an answer to the climate crisis.

Leadership with global responsibility

”For the future of humanity, we must reach an agreement in Copenhagen. But if the world is to achieve this, leadership is essential and a leadership that takes its global responsibility. I hope that the EU continues to act as both locomotive and lobbyist and with its good examples and obligations encourage the rest of the world to contribute so that we can reach an agreement in December”, said Ban Ki-Moon.

Reaching an agreement in Copenhagen in December has become something of a defining issue not just on the EU’s agenda, but on the whole world’s agenda. The reason for this is of course that the threat to the climate is increasing day by day and the world cannot afford to wait. However, during his visit to Stockholm, Ban Ki-moon pointed out that even if the countries cannot agree on everything in Copenhagen, the most important thing is to get the main framework and an overall agreement in place. And then details can be discussed next year. Another issue discussed at the meeting was the need for further international meetings ahead of the Copenhagen conference. Fredrik Reinfeldt stated that nothing can be ruled out at this stage. It is now all about doing what it takes to move forward.

High Level Task Force on Climate Change

Another issue discussed by Ban Ki-moon and Fredrik Reinfeldt was a high level task force to be established after the Copenhagen conference. This was decided after the climate summit in New York last week, following an initiative by a commission led by Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation Gunilla Carlsson. The aim of this task force is to establish a cohesive approach to both development assistance and climate change issues. To address the food crisis in developing countries while at the same time taking on the climate crisis and the financial and economic crisis in a coordinated effort.

A meeting with Gunilla Carlsson i is also on the agenda during Ban Ki-moon’s visit to Sweden, to discuss, among other things, how best to progress to decide the format for such a task force.