Toespraak Zweedse minister van Milieu over klimaattop in New York (en)

“The world’s major emitting countries want to make progress, and this political signal needs to have an impact on the negotiations at official level in Bangkok next week. Taken together, the meetings over the past few days can give the necessary new impetus to negotiations that at present are moving far too slowly.”

This was Minister for the Environment Andreas Carlgren’s comment after the climate summit in New York.

 “Both the Chinese and US presidents have now shown that they want to achieve progress. We would have liked to see more clearly defined goals but the mere fact of their presence at the UN climate summit was an important signal.”

During the past week, Mr Carlgren has joined environment ministers from all over the world in several climate meetings, at the Major Economies Forum in Washington, the ‘Greenland Dialogue’ and the climate summit organised by the UN in New York. He has had separate meetings with Japan’s new environment minister and others.

“Environment Minister Ozawa confirms the ambitious intentions of the new Japanese Government. I hope that the EU and Japan together will provide momentum to the negotiations,” says Mr Carlgren.

The EU has made the most far-reaching offers on emissions reductions. The EU also has the most ambitious financing proposal, which will now be further discussed at the G20 i meeting in Pittsburgh.

“After this week of meetings, it is even more obvious that the EU is leading the way in climate negotiations. The EU is now also showing leadership in financing and in tackling the situation of the poorest countries and those that are most vulnerable to climate change. We intend to continue to shoulder the leadership role,” says Mr Carlgren.

The Minister for the Environment has had many multilateral meetings in Washington and New York, together with the incoming Spanish Presidency of the European Union and the European Commission, as well as numerous bilateral meetings, notably with developing countries. 

“The talks with Indian Environment Minister Mr Jairam Ramesh revealed opportunities for tangible progress,” says Mr Carlgren.