A meeting of ministers with responsibility for climate change from over 60 countries around the world opened Sunday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development in Paris, France.
The three-day Pre-COP meeting is the third and final of its kind to be hosted jointly by the Minister of the Environment of Peru, Manuel Vidal who was the President of COP20, and Laurent Fabius, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, who will be the President of COP21.
Like the previous two ministerial meetings, this one is seeking to establish convergence on some of the key issues that are confronting negotiators from over 190 countries who are working on the text of a new climate change agreement that will be signed in Paris at COP21 in December. Four main subject areas are being discussed by the ministers attending the Pre-COP, namely (i) Equity and Differentiation, (ii) Finances Post-2020, (iii) Action and Support Pre-2020, and (iv) Ambition.
Saint Lucia’s Minister for Sustainable Development, James Fletcher is participating in this Pre-COP and is expected to inform the meeting of the perspectives of Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) on these issues, and on some of the other areas still unresolved, such as the treatment of Loss and Damage in the new Agreement, the legal form of the Agreement, and the need to restrict the global temperature increase to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the Century.
Minister Fletcher recently hosted a meeting of Caribbean ministers of the Environment and regional climate change negotiators in Saint Lucia to establish a CARICOM consensus on the issues being debated at the Pre-COP Ministerial meeting.
The 21st Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will begin in Paris on Monday 30th November with a High Level Leaders Summit.
Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister, Dr. Kenny Anthony, who holds lead responsibility in CARICOM for Sustainable Development and Climate Change, will address the Leaders Summit on the opening day of COP21.