Environment minister Carole Dieschbourg (Déi Gréng) Libaray photo: Jan Hanrion / Maison Moderne Publishing SA

Environment minister Carole Dieschbourg (Déi Gréng) Libaray photo: Jan Hanrion / Maison Moderne Publishing SA

Cop26, which will be held from 31 October to 12 November, will have a key challenge: to finalise the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Carole Dieschbourg says there is still time to reach an agreement to tackle the climate crisis--but it must be ambitious enough.

Environment Minister Carole Dieschbourg (Gréng) will be attending Cop26 in Glasgow, which takes place from 31 October to 12 November. The challenge will be to finalise the implementation of the Paris Agreement, concluded at Cop21 in 2015. Although this will be “very difficult”, the minister says that it is still possible to limit global warming to 1.5°C. But countries will have to find a sufficiently ambitious agreement, in line with the IPCC recommendations.

What is the priority of this COP26?

Carole Dieschbourg: To finish the Paris rulebook, the implementation of the Paris Agreement, which should have been done at the last two Cops. As a European country, we insist on finishing this work. In view of this, we finalised the European position a fortnight ago at the last meeting of the EU environment ministers, in order to have a clear and precise mandate, a basis for negotiations at international level that holds up.

What is important and what has been integrated into the EU mandate is that the markets have integrity, that there is no double counting, that the notion of environmental integrity is introduced and that human rights are respected. The EU is also calling for five-year negotiation rounds to raise ambition levels at each deadline.

International climate finance is also one of the issues at stake at COP26...

We have been working to make a new announcement at the Cop. We are already the country that invests the most in international climate financing. But we have prepared, together with the ministry of finance and all the actors in the government, a position that puts us in the front rank of countries in this area.

If we want everyone to raise their level of ambition, it is important to show what we are doing in terms of international climate financing. Because the most vulnerable countries will not have confidence if we do not show them that we are working on this. And Luxembourg has a very important role to play in this area.

We have invested unprecedented amounts in the shift to soft mobility and public transport.
Carole Dieschbourg

Carole DieschbourgMinister for the mnvironment

The COP is also an opportunity to take stock of each country’s action...

Indeed, we have to show that we are doing our homework in Luxembourg and that we have a long-term climate strategy to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. To do this, we have raised Luxembourg's level of ambition from 40% to 55% with the climate law, we have set up our sectoral targets as well as the committees that are necessary to continue the fight against climate change, namely the scientific observatory.

Will other members of the government be present?

Yes, we are also preparing with other ministries that will be present. For example, the minister for transport, François Bausch (Déi Gréng), will come to show that, as the first country to have introduced free public transport, we have invested sums never before seen in the shift in soft mobility and public transport.

The prime minister, Xavier Bettel (DP), will give a speech at the opening. Finance minister Pierre Gramegna (DP) will also be present. This shows that the whole government is active in fighting the climate crisis.

As minister for the environment, what is your role behind the scenes?

During the second week of the Cop, the EU environment ministers meet every morning to adapt and improve the European positions, as the EU always speaks with one voice in international negotiations.

Furthermore, Luxembourg is in a group called the High Ambition Coalition, a coalition of countries created in Paris. We see each other at each Cop and, when we need more ambition on certain elements, when we see that some of them might not be achieved, we negotiate behind the scenes, we organise press conferences to make political statements. So we try to create dynamics.

That is the role of a minister: to negotiate, to find partners, allies, to work in groups where, if it works well, you get results. But I always negotiate within the framework of Europe, to find a good European position.

We also organise bilateral meetings with partner countries, such as Cape Verde, to take stock of the actions we are working on together, in terms of the climate plan and renewable energies, and to negotiate so that these countries take an ambitious position.

I hope that we will have the courage to take this major step forward in the negotiations.
Carole Dieschbourg

Carole DieschbourgMinister for the environment

Have past Cops been effective?

In 2015 there was this great Cop (Cop21) where we concluded the Paris Agreement, the framework in which we are now working. That was a very good step forward.

Then there were some steps forward. In Katowice, we finished a lot of work on the implementation of the Paris Agreement, but we didn't manage to finalise everything. In Madrid, unfortunately, we did not make any major steps forward because of the international context. The objective here was not to go back on what was achieved... And last year there was no Cop, so we lost time.

For this Cop, the work on the Paris rulebook must therefore be completed. We wanted to finalise this two years ago. So I hope that we will have the courage to take this big step forward in the negotiations.

Aren’t these negotiations moving too slowly in view of the urgency of the climate crisis?

That is clear. As environment ministers, we always want to go further and faster. From another point of view, the decisions taken must also be sustainable. An agreement should not be reached at any price: it should also be sufficiently ambitious.

This Cop26 is sometimes referred to as the ‘Cop of the last chance’. Is this the case?

Some people say so. But I don’t really like that. Using these extremes can help those who don’t want an agreement. So I try to be diplomatic.

Is there still time to find an agreement that will limit global warming to 1.5°C?

According to the IPCC report, we can still achieve this goal. But it is very difficult. We need to act now and find international agreements that work. But we need the ambition to be in line with what the IPCC recommends. So it is not a question of finding an agreement at any price.

Having said that, the constellation has changed a lot now: Europe has raised its level of ambition, the United States is back at the negotiating table, China has made its announcements. In this positive spirit, we can hope to find an agreement.

This interview was conducted for the Paperjam Green newsletter, the monthly rendez-vous to follow news on environment, climate, mobility, CSR and green finance.  (in French).

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.