Achieving the target of climate neutrality in the European Union by 2050 will require additional investment, equal to 0.8 of GDP, Miguel Arias Canete, the EU commissioner for climate action and energy, said during an EU side event at COP24 on Wednesday
KATOWICE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th December, 2018) Achieving the target of climate neutrality in the European Union by 2050 will require additional investment, equal to 0.8 of GDP, Miguel Arias Canete, the EU commissioner for climate action and energy, said during an EU side event at COP24 on Wednesday.
"Climate neutrality in 2050 will require additional investment in the order of 175-290 billion Euros a year [$198-328 billion], but we should know that keeping our current economic model going will require investments in the order of two percent of GDP in any event. This additional investment represents around 0.8 percent of GDP," Canete said.
The commissioner noted that the path to climate neutrality should also result in enhanced prosperity.
"The EU intends to demonstrate that the transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions is possible and that the economic transformation, it requires, will open many economic opportunities, in fact, more opportunities than a continuation of the status quo, where our competitiveness and our technological lead are being constantly challenged," Canete added.
COP24 is taking place on December 2-14 in the Polish city of Katowice. The main goal of the conference participants is to discuss ways of implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
The Paris climate deal, created within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, went into force on November 4, 2016. It has been ratified by 184 of the 197 parties to the accord. The deal aims to keep the increase in average global temperature at below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate neutrality represents the level of emissions going into the atmosphere that are being offset by nature, forests and soils, restoring the balance of Earth to what it was before the industrial revolution.
