Each year, the Parties to the UNFCCC meet to review and review progress on the Agreement, related agreements and their implementation. The Presidency represents the EU in these international forums, known as the “United Nations Climate Change Conferences” (or Co-Conferences of the Parties). “What I would like from a new government is a combination of urgency and speed, wherever possible, and at the same time work to build the coalition of actors who will lead to good, sustainable policy that will not be overthrown in the next government,” Strait said. In 2015, the U.S. delegation played a central role in negotiations for consensus on the agreement. Trump lied to the campaign by leaving it. No other country followed the U.S. from the deal. In fact, many others have entered the leadership vacuum, she says; The EU, China, Japan and South Korea have recently announced ambitious new targets for how quickly they will achieve net-zero emissions and are on track to achieve them. At the same time, the cost of renewable energy sources, such as sun and wind, has decreased, making them not only competitive, but also often cheaper than fossil energy sources. Global temperatures are rising quite predictably in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. This means that there is an ultimate limit to the amount of carbon we can put into the atmosphere if we want to meet temperature targets: in other words, a carbon “budget” that we must stick to. If President Trump wins, it is almost certain that the United States will remain out of the deal for at least the next four years, making it difficult, if not impossible, to slow the rise in global temperatures.

Prior to the Paris Climate Change Conference, the EU submitted its National Contribution (INDC) to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The EU`s INDC expresses the EU`s commitment to the negotiation process for a new legally binding agreement on climate change to keep global warming below 2°C. It also confirmed the binding target of reducing national greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030 compared to 1990, as set out in the European Council conclusions of October 2014.