Representatives of Latin America and the European Union positively assessed the achievements and results attained in the first stage of the EUROCLIMA Program and began planning the activities that will be carried out during the new phase entitled EUROCLIMA+, while attending two seminars held in Lima, Peru.
The Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Antonio Prado, extolled the importance of the bi-regional cooperation program during the EUROCLIMA Seminar, which took place on May 30-31 in the Peruvian capital.
In his speech, the senior ECLAC official recalled that EUROCLIMA began by supporting the documentation of the economic impacts of climate change in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Later, documentation was added regarding the social impacts of climate change on inequality, poverty, a cross-cutting vision of gender, and follow-up to climate financing in the region.
“At the end of this stage, we have enough instruments to be able to analyze the dilemmas and complementarities between development goals and climate goals. This allows us to analyze the magnitude of the gaps and the velocity of change that is needed to satisfy different policy objectives simultaneously, as required by the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement, in diverse fields such as agriculture, energy consumption, employment and foreign trade, among others,” Prado sustained, highlighting the role that ECLAC plays in this context in terms of political dialogue.
EUROCLIMA is a climate change-focused regional cooperation program between the European Union and the 18 countries of Latin America. Participating nations include Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. Its objective is to facilitate the integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies and measures into the region’s public development policies and plans.
The first stage of the program consisted of two phases. The first was carried out between 2010 and 2013, while the second began in 2014 and will finalize on June 30, 2017.
Over the years, the component implemented by ECLAC in the EUROCLIMA program has provided technical support on priority issues for countries, created spaces for dialogue about public policies, worked on capacity-strengthening, and contributed to producing information and knowledge.
“With EUROCLIMA we have been able to develop technical discussion spaces about public policy among national and international experts and decision-makers in the region. But that’s not all. We have also been able to promote learning among the countries themselves, south-south, through peer exchanges so that the significant experiences carried out in one country could be shared with other countries interested in applying them nationally,” Antonio Prado underscored.
At the seminar, experts from ECLAC noted that one of the pending challenges in the region is improvement in the quality of public service provision and a change in the quality of investments.
In this vein, they urged participants to take advantage of the existing gap between the spheres of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) to work on public policies. They also called for promoting the participation of the ministries of Finance, Economy and Planning in climate change discussions.
Afterward, at the EUROCLIMA+ Seminar held on June 1-2, attendees addressed strategic issues for the new phase. EUROCLIMA+ will have a strong component of technical assistance and work toward structural change in five sectors: (i) forests, biodiversity and ecosystems; (ii) resource efficiency in urban development; (iii) disaster risk reduction and management; (iv) resilient food production; and (v) renewable energy and energy efficiency.
