Denmark expects to be able to reach agreement on a declaration of intent on the EU's 2035 climate goals at a ministerial meeting on Thursday.
This is what Minister of Climate, Energy and Utilities Lars Aagaard (M) says on his way to the meeting in Brussels.
- Today we have formulated a declaration that shows that Europe is ready to do its part, says Lars Aagaard ahead of the meeting.
Here the Danish minister will try to get the other EU countries to join the declaration.
And that will happen, one must understand from Lars Aagaard, who was frustrated by a question from a French media outlet about what Plan B is if it does not succeed.
- What a strange question. I interpret your question this way: If I am an inexperienced negotiator, which I am not, then I would never flag a plan B on the way into a negotiation.
- With all due respect: I hope that you will accept that answer and be assured that I will use all my negotiation experience in a constructive way at the meeting, says Lars Aagaard.
The frustration may be that the Danish EU presidency's climate ambitions, despite hard work, have been swept aside by the EU's largest countries, Germany and France, supported by industrially heavy countries such as Italy, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The Danish goal was originally that Thursday's ministerial meeting should be used to unite the EU countries around the EU's own 2040 climate target, which should be a 90 percent reduction in greenhouse gases compared to the level in 1990.
Based on that target, the EU countries should then agree on an ambitious 2035 target, which the EU must submit to the UN in September, and which constitutes the EU's message at COP30.
But that is not going to happen.
A number of EU countries have demanded that the 2040 target be taken up at an EU summit, where a decision will require unanimity.
Denmark has therefore read the room and also given up on finally determining the 2035 target at Thursday's meeting.
Instead, the target is now a declaration of intent about what the target will be.
Lars Aagaard denies that he is disappointed that the 2040 climate target is being postponed to a later EU summit, which also makes it more difficult for Denmark to gather agreement on the 2035 target.
- I respect that a broad group of countries want a discussion at the level of heads of state and government. It shows commitment that the discussion is taking place at that level.
- It also reflects that we are not only talking about a climate law (with the 2040 target, ed.). We are also talking about the things that make the climate law possible. In this way, it goes much further than what the climate ministers can decide in isolation. So it has a strong logic behind it, says Lars Aagaard.
/ritzau/
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