Brussels, (Samajweekly) John Kerry, the US’ Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, has underlined the cooperation between Washington and the European Union (EU) on the fight against climate crisis during his visit to Brussels.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Kerry said “Constructive trip to Brussels. The US and EU are hard at work to address the climate crisis. I look forward to seeing our EU partners at the Leaders Summit on Climate on Earth Day, April 22.”
On Tuesday, the former Secretary of State stressed that the world is facing not only a climate crisis but also “a moment of the greatest opportunity that we’ve had since perhaps the industrial revolution to build better to renew ourselves and our economies”, reports Xinhua news agency.
He described the upcoming UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, slated to take place in November, as the last opportunity for the world to come together and “build on Paris (Agreement)”.
Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, hailed the return of the US climate action.
He said the EU and the US would be working to make a success of Glasgow, though it will be quite an effort to “convince other major players in the world to do the right thing”.
Kerry attended the weekly European Commission College meeting, where the Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen recalled that President Joe Biden, on his first day in office, announced the US’ return to the Paris Agreement.
The EU member states agreed in December 2020 to cut the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030 from 1990 levels.
So far, half of the G20 members, such as Japan, China, South Korea or South Africa, are already committed to achieving climate- or at least carbon neutrality by 2050 or soon after.
