EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT DAYS

European Development Days
Friday 9 November 2007

Closing Ceremony

Gallery: Closing Ceremony

• Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, First Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba
• Andrej Šter, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Slovenia
• Francisco Nunes Correia, Minister for Environment, Spatial Planning and Regional Development, Portugal
• Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid

The 2^nd European Development Days provided a forum for debate, discussion and knowledge-sharing about the inextricable linkages between climate change and development. At the Closing Ceremony, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, Cuba’s First-Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, reminded participants why it is important to act now. He said that “little had been done” and the situation today is a lot more critical than the meeting in Rio de Janeiro 15 years ago at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. Continue reading “Closing Ceremony”

European Development Days
Friday November 9, 2007

Parallel Event
Integrating Climate Change into Development Policies and Projects

Moderator Dominique Le Masne, MFA - France

Yvan Biot, Senior Policy Advisor, Department for International Development, UK (DFID)

Philippe Bosse, French Fund for World Environment

Anne Chetaille, Association for International Solidarity and Cooperation

Denis Loyer, Agence Française de Développement (French Development Agency)

Jan Peter Schemmel, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ)

Laura Schmidt, European Commission

Bruno Wenn, Senior Vice-President Policy Department, Promotion of Developing Countries, KfW Entwicklungsbank (KfW Development Bank)

The call for integrating adaptation to climate change into the global development agenda was heard loud and clear at the 2^nd European Development Days. But how can that daunting challenge be met? The panel presented their organizations’ strategies.

“In 2003, the European Commission adopted an Action Plan for integrating climate change into our development agenda,” said Laura Schmidt of the European Commission. “We have now prepared the first bi-annual progress report, which covers the progress we have made during 2004 to 2006.” Continue reading “Integrating Climate Change into Development Policies and Projects”

Download this video (fr)

Version française

Download this video (en)

English version

European Development Days
Friday 9 November 2007

Parallel Event
Carbon against Poverty

• João José Fernandes, Oikos
• Gonçalo Cavalheiro, Ecoprogresso

This event marked the launch of a new environmental and development initiative, Carbono contra a Pobreza (Carbon against Poverty). The initiative is a joint venture of two Portuguese entities, Oikos, a non-profit organisation specialising in development and cooperation issues, and Ecoprogresso, an environmental consultancy. The principal aim of Carbon against Poverty is to promote strategies, projects and investments at local, regional, national and international levels for climate change mitigation and adaptation, which at the same time reduce poverty and support economic development.Gonçalo Cavalheiro of Ecoprogresso began with a powerful verbal and visual presentation demonstrating the links between poverty, the suffering of the poor and the adverse consequences of climate change. Relying heavily on the work and findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cavalheiro described how adverse climate and weather conditions caused by climate change most severely impact regions of the world where the poorest people live. “The poor and most vulnerable are hit hardest,” he noted. For this reason, the philosophy of Carbon against Poverty is to find opportunities to combat poverty and climate change. The way forward, he stressed, is to find projects that mitigate greenhouse gas emissions while benefiting and improving the adaptation skills of the poor.The way to do this, according to João José Fernandes of Oikos, is to use the carbon market to reduce poverty. “Tools to combat climate change can also relieve poverty,” he said. Carbon against Poverty will pursue two complimentary strategies. First, it will “raise awareness of the link between climate change and development,” Fernandes said. Second, it will “identify and promote projects using the Clean Development Mechanism and other greenhouse gas reduction schemes like the Gold Standard to finance development.”As an example of such a project, Fernandes described how Oikos is trying to offset CO2 emissions resulting from its operations by funding a biomass electrical generation project in rural India. The project also provides employment for impoverished local residents.More information can be found at www.CarbonoContraPobreza.org.

Download this video