Speech by Commissioner Hoekstra in the European Parliaments Plenary debate on the outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference - Belém (COP30)

Thank you very much Mr President,

Honourable Members,

Now that the dust has settled on COP30, thank you very much for the opportunity to jointly reflect on what we achieved and what it was like.

I would start by thanking the European Parliaments delegation led by MEP Pereira, for their very significant time investment, effort and success in Belém. It was hugely important to have them, and I deeply appreciate that they took the time to come and stand shoulder to shoulder at the COP.

Ladies and gentlemen,

If I were to sum up and express in a couple of words what in my view of the COP, I would summarise it as: important steps forward, but more would have been better.

Important steps forward because if you were to unpack it: look at mitigation and what we achieved, you look at the money we managed to free up for adaptation particularly for the poorest, add up how we managed to secure the whole conversation on CBAM, add up what we managed to win in terms of multilateralism, and a range of smaller items that took less of the discussion, but where we took important steps forward.

But if you then look at the numbers, and you look at what the world actually needs in terms of mitigation, needs in terms of adaptation, its crystal clear that more would have been better.

Mr President,

Please allow me to briefly run you through a couple of the elements.

On mitigation:

Clearly, we managed to build on the agreements from COP28. There is a clear focus on the tripling and on the doubling and on transitioning away from fossil fuels. Even though I have to acknowledge that because of the resistance of quite a substantial group, the Brazilian Presidencys idea to come up with a roadmap and include that into the main text did not succeed, and that of course that is unfortunate.

What is also very important is that there is resistance, as weird as it might sound to address the gap. That was one of my fascinations. You first do a huge stocktake of your plans, thats the sum of all your NDCs, which you find fall short in terms of what the world needs in terms of ambition, so there is a gap.  And then there is a conversation where youre discussing whether you should actually address that gap: which was at least surprising, that is the diplomatic word to use. But the good news is that in the end we did manage to secure this. Again, more concreteness, more concreteness on pathways, having the language on fossil fuels in the main text would have clearly been better.

Secondly adaptation: what I think is a clear win, and also a matter of fairness, is that on the one hand we manage to keep exactly everything intact that we delivered on last year, at the NCQG. That is important because that puts the conversation on how much money we put on the table to rest. It articulates that this is clearly a responsibility for the developed first and foremost, but those who have the affluence to do so should also chip in.

And that part of the package, after a long, very long conversation was left the way it is, but, and that is actually hugely important, we managed to agree that within the realm of the money we have allocated, were going to triple the amount of money that is going into adaptation for the most vulnerable.

And if you hear the stories from our friends in the LDCs, but in particular also the islands in the Pacific and in the Caribbean and many of you will have had these conversations as well: it is breathtaking to hear how important - frankly speaking - relatively small amounts of money actually are. And how accessing this money, just because the scale is so small, is very, very difficult. And were talking about those that have the least responsibility for the problem that the world now sees globally but are most at the receiving end of those problems. And therefore, I do think it is hugely important that we did manage to take these steps forward.

Third, there is of course this intangible thing called multilateralism. How much is it worth to take a deal? And to make sure that the world moves forward, rather than everything falls apart at the COP. You can have different judgements on that. However, even though it is often hugely painful and complicated and it takes more time to do things together, if at the same time youre facing a problem that by its very nature doesnt discriminate, is global, is something that affects the whole world, it make sense to try to tackle that together. And therefore, I feel that particularly in these challenging geopolitical times, it make sense to uphold multilateralism and seek to push it forward.

Mr President,

Those are the main points of the agreement. Maybe its also good - but that is more defensive play from us to mention that - I think it is good news, that the temperature is finally going down on CBAM. As a matter of fact, many in bilateral conversations actually acknowledge that this is a climate tool, that this is there to prevent emissions leaking from the European Union. And at the same time Members of the European Parliament will recall that since last year: this is actively being weaponised diplomatically just to squeeze out additional things from us.

We can agree that this is unfair, we can agree that this is unjust, we can have all sorts of principled views on it but of course this is a conversation that we do need to have with the rest of the world and the agreement we made here is also a step in the right direction.

Mr President, and I know time is running out, there is of course the whole list of things that are hugely important but were discussed to a lesser extent, but I do want to briefly mention them. There is the adaptation on the global goal on adaptation indicators.

There was the just transition where the COP set the foundations of a new just transition mechanism to be operationalised next year. On the global stocktake follow-up, parties agreed to the operationalisation of the UAE dialogue. On loss and damage, we concluded the review of the Warshaw mechanism and the adopted guidance on the fund to respond to loss and damage.

The discussions on aligning all the financial flows of the Paris Agreement Goals will in substance continue even though its under a new name and the review will take place in 2028.

We delivered on the 9-year Gender Action Plan, we managed to make sure we paid tribute to democracy and rule of law. Weirdly from our perspective, these are subjects that continue to be under attack in all substantial international conversations, but unfortunately also at the COP.

So again, Mr President, to sum it up: important steps forward, more would have been better, and we will continue to push for exactly that. Thank you very much.