With Sweden’s recent ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol that makes the European nation the 20^th country to do so, the pact will now enter into force with effect from January 1, 2019.

The Kigali Amendment, which aims to will bring about a global phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), has now been ratified by 20 nations, including EU members Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Sweden and the UK.

It means the necessary threshold for entry into force of the Amendment, agreed to tackle the rapid growth of emissions of HFCs, which are regarded as powerful greenhouse gases, has been reached.

Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, Miguel Arias Cañete, said: “The Kigali Amendment is proof of the global resolve to tackle climate change and shows what we can achieve when we work together. For Europe, implementation of our commitment will not only help us to meet our climate objectives but will also create new opportunities for European manufacturers of air conditioning and refrigerants.”

The Kigali Amendment was agreed in October 2016 by the 197 Parties to the Montreal Protocol, in order to gradually reduce global production and consumption of HFCs. Developed countries will go first, but developing countries also take on firm reduction commitments in the medium term.

Implementation of the agreement is expected to prevent up to 80 billion tonnes CO2equivalent of emissions by 2050, which will make a significant contribution to the Paris Agreement objective to limit the global temperature rise to well below 2°C.

Further benefits may be achieved by exploiting synergies with energy efficiency in the transition to alternative new technologies. The 30-year-old Montreal Protocol has been highly successful in protecting the Earth’s ozone layer, and the Kigali Amendment will allow it to make a wider and important contribution to global efforts to mitigate climate change.

The EU is leading global efforts to limit emissions of HFCs and other fluorinated greenhouse gases. Its 2014 regulation on fluorinated gases will ensure that the EU can meet its obligations under the Kigali Amendment while also driving innovation in the field.

HFCs are synthetic substances which are mainly used mainly in refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment, as well as for propellants in foams. Their global warming effect is up to 15,000 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. The use of HFCs use is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, although the EU’s own emissions recently fell for the first time in almost 15 years.

The 23rd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that came to a close on Friday, November 17, 2017 will be remembered for highlighting climate change impacts on vulnerable nations.

Hosted by Fiji but held in Bonn, Germany, the first “island COP” was said to have shone a spotlight on the impacts of climate change on island states and particularly vulnerable countries.

Chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group, Gebru Jember Endalew, said, “As an Ethiopian, I know intimately the pain caused by climate change. My country is in the grip of a severe drought that has put 13 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia at risk of increased food insecurity. At the same time, our friends in South Asia have been drenched by extraordinary monsoon flooding, friends in the Caribbean have been battered by devastating hurricanes, and island states in the pacific are watching their homes disappear before their eyes beneath the water.

“As Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama of Fiji put it, we are all in the same canoe. The impacts may vary, but no country can escape the damage of climate change. This is why we came to COP23 with high expectations for a COP of action and support, with substantive outcomes to achieve the goals set by the international community in Paris.

“The LDCs welcome progress that has been made here at COP23, including the adoption of the Gender Action Plan and the Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ Platform. It is essential that we amplify marginalised voices and recognise the disproportionate impact of climate change on women and indigenous communities around the world. This is crucial for achieving global climate justice and for addressing the multi-faceted threat of climate change.

“Progress was also made on the design of the Talanoa Dialogue to be held in 2018. The Dialogue must lead to an increase in ambition by all countries to put us on track to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“A key priority at COP23 was making significant progress on developing the ‘ruleset’ that will govern how countries implement their Paris Agreement commitments. While the LDC group welcomes the progress made, many areas of work are still lagging behind. This jeopardises our ability to complete the Paris ruleset by our agreed deadline at the end of 2018. We must urgently put pen to paper to properly finalise the ruleset in a thoughtful and considered manner, without a last-minute rush.

“We also need to rapidly translate work done in the negotiating rooms into tangible action on the ground. This calls for ambitious climate action by all countries through strengthening and implementing national contributions, managing the decline of fossil fuels, and promoting renewable energy. The LDCs are committed to leading on ambitious climate action in our countries – a key example is the LDC Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Initiative, an LDC-owned and driven initiative to bring universal access to clean energy in the world’s poorest countries.

“Tackling climate change also requires support for adaptation and loss and damage action in poor and particularly vulnerable countries. The LDC Group thanks Germany, Sweden and Belgium for the contributions to the Adaptation Fund and Least Developed Countries Fund. We hope to see other countries following suit and rapidly accelerating their finance pledges to meet the scale of support needed by developing countries to fill the ever-widening finance gap.

“In particular, the need to adapt to, and address the irreversible loss and damage arising from, climate change is a matter of urgency for LDCs. The scale of loss and damage that LDCs are experiencing is already beyond our capacity to respond and it will only get worse, with more lives lost, more destruction to infrastructure and a bigger impact on our economies. We will not be able to raise our people out of poverty if we do not effectively address loss and damage and for that we need support.

“The LDCs call for a global response to climate change that is fair and equitable, that advances the interests and aspirations of poor and vulnerable countries and peoples, and fulfils our Paris vision of limiting warming to below 1.5°C to ensure a safe and prosperous future for all.”

The 23rd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, Germany is the first UN Climate Change Conference to receive official certification for eco-friendly performance.

The German Federal Environment Minister, Barbara Hendricks, and UN Climate Change Deputy Executive Secretary, Ovais Sarmad, were on Friday, November 17, 2017 presented with the Eco-management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) certificate. The certificate verifies the event management’s successful and environmentally-friendly organisation of the conference.

Event managers were already aiming for the consistent prevention of environmental burdens when planning began eleven months ago, and their work was documented in the environmental statement required under EMAS.

Hendricks said: “We have succeeded in making this Climate Change Conference environmentally friendly and sustainable. This is an important signal for a conference which is not just about negotiations, but also about taking action. It goes without saying that there is still room for improvement in certain areas – this COP only marks the start of the learning curve. I highly recommend using EMAS as the yardstick for future Climate Change Conferences.”

Sarmad said: “I want to thank the German government, the people of Bonn and my own staff for embracing wholeheartedly the UN climate conference 2017 and its ambition to be the greenest COP ever. We are fortunate indeed to be headquartered in a country that is working towards a determined transition to an environmentally-friendly and ever more sustainable future. That said, achieving the high EMAS certification approval was not a given.

“But here I think we have together raised the sustainability bar of UN conferences with some 28,800 people participating over the two weeks. I am sure many will look to what has been achieved, within the UN system and beyond, for inspiration on how all events and conferences can play their part in meeting the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.”

All goals and measures were documented in the environmental statement, then assessed on-site over several days by environmental verifiers and subsequently validated. Such measures included waste avoidance and strict waste separation, climate-friendly catering, excellent local public transport, climate-neutral shuttle services and environmentally sound and reusable materials also for the temporary structures. Energy supply and water consumption are also among the areas to be reviewed in the follow-up.

The role of the 650 volunteers who supported the conference and received training on COP23 environmental issues, should not be underestimated. They inform participants, for instance, about the numerous drinking fountains throughout the conference premises (almost 50) where participants can refill their COP23 reusable bottles they received on registering. The environmental verifier confirmed that this approach also worked well.

After the conference, data on consumption, collected data and the goals and measures of the original environmental statement will be evaluated and examined again by the environmental verifier. This will include a precise calculation of the unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions caused, for example, by the arrival and departure of the participants. These emissions will be offset with certified emission reduction (CERs) credits from particularly ambitious international climate action projects.

The IHK (The Chamber of Commerce and Industry) of Duisburg, which is responsible for Bonn, also handed over the registration certificate for the official EMAS database. COP23 will be added to the EMAS register, which now contains over 9,000 sites of companies and organisations committed to environmental protection.