Today, Commissioner Lenarčič attended the event “Closing the gap: accelerating climate action in fragile and vulnerable contexts” in the margins of the 78th UN General Assembly.
The event took place at the Permanent Mission of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in NYC, co-chaired by the UAE, Belgium, the Marshall Islands and the EU.
During the event, Commissioner Lenarčič expressed concerns about the worrying effects of climate change impacting Europe and countries worldwide. Particularly in already critical humanitarian contexts, local communities are disproportionally affected by the consequences of extreme weather-events, such as food and water scarcity, droughts, large-scale destruction, and displacement.
The Commissioner outlined the EU’s humanitarian approach to the adverse effects of climate change, based on increasing investments in disaster preparedness within humanitarian programmes, scaling up anticipatory actions, and greening EU-funded humanitarian operations.
He also highlighted how humanitarian aid alone is not a sustainable solution and called for further action to strengthen the resilience of local communities.
Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, said: “The EU will continue to advocate for international support to reach as many people as possible among the most vulnerable impacted by climate change. I thank Belgium, the Marshall Islands and the United Arab Emirates for today’s fruitful discussion. We also thank the Presidency of the upcoming COP28 for ensuring a prominent space on the event’s agenda for these important and pressing topics.”
Details
- Publication date
- 21 September 2023
- Author
- Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO)
