29 June 2019: Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and UN Secretary-General António Guterres reaffirmed their “strong commitment” to enhancing international cooperation on climate change to ensure implementation of the Paris Agreement. The announcement came at the conclusion of a trilateral meeting held on the sidelines of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Osaka, Japan.

In his remarks, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the commitment of both China and France to a multilateral approach to climate change has been critical to the climate regime’s success. He reiterated that the UN Climate Action Summit on 23 September 2019 is expected to raise ambition and ensure that progress is made on the commitment to mobilize USD 100 billion per year for mitigation and adaptation actions in developing countries, from both the public and the private sectors, to, inter alia, help replenish the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

China and France reaffirmed their commitment to update and enhance their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and publish their long-term mid-century low emission development strategies (LEDS) by 2020 in the context of sustainable development.

Meeting participants underscored the importance of, inter alia:

• increasing financing for nature-based solutions, which can mitigate climate change, build climate resilience and help realize the goals of the Paris Agreement and the SDGs;
• sustainably managing forests as carbon sinks and for their role in biodiversity protection;
• leveraging adaptation and mitigation finance for developing countries; and
• decent, high-quality jobs in transitioning to low-emission and climate-resilient development.

They also agreed to cooperate on elucidating the climate-biodiversity link and contribute to developing the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

China and France are co-leads of the ‘Nature Based Solutions’ and ‘Climate Finance and Carbon Pricing’ coalitions, respectively, for the UN Climate Summit. The three sides encouraged all countries to actively participate in the Summit, and present “their visions” and actions for increasing ambition.

France and the UN said they would cooperate with China to align related infrastructure investments with the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They also said they would support improved energy efficiency standards in the cooling sector, recognizing the climate and economic benefits of phasing out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and welcomed China’s national Green and High Efficiency Cooling Action Plan.

The meeting took place on 29 June 2019. [UN Press Release] [UN Secretary-General’s Remarks] [UN News Article]