Accelerating progress on climate negotiations ahead of COP26
COP26 President Alok Sharma at the 5th Ministerial on Climate Action (MoCA), hosted by the European Union, China and Canada
Thank you very much. Ministers, friends. It is very good to see you today.
Together, the world forged the Paris Agreement in 2015. And together, at COP26, we must unleash its full potential.
That requires action on mitigation, adaptation, and finance, and of course enhanced collaboration: those are our four goals for COP26.
At last year’s Ministerial I made the case for net zero targets, long term strategies, and ambitious NDCs.
I said developed nations must honour the $100billion goal. And that adaptation and green recoveries were vital.
These points, friends, still stand. We must deliver urgently on mitigation and finance. And all countries should produce adaptation communications.
But today, I want to speak briefly about the importance of using the road to COP26 to accelerate progress on the negotiations.
We are all committed to a successful negotiated outcome in Glasgow.
Which means building consensus beforehand.
On items which, in some instances as you know, we have not settled in the five years since Paris.
Friends I say this to you very, very frankly - we must do more than restate stances, or dig-in to entrenched positions.
We must show compromise and understanding to find that balanced package which we all want.
That requires political leadership, and it depends on us working together, to capture solutions that we can bring with us to Glasgow.
As we have heard from a number of our distinguished speakers, we must employ all tools available to us.
And I ask you to use our time today, the forthcoming Petersberg Dialogue, and the June session of the Subsidiary Bodies to accelerate that progress.
Because it is only through flexibility and leadership that we can find compromise.
And thereby agree a balanced package that makes the goals of the Paris Agreement a reality.
We must not let the chance slip. We must act now. The world is watching. We must not fail.