Mediaboss Marketing

Following increased public attention to the global sustainability agenda, investors, public institutions, and companies around the world are increasingly prioritizing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) measures as part of their investment criteria. With this growing demand for sustainable investment strategies, it is unsurprising that the global regulatory landscape has been rapidly developing to accommodate this shift.

In the United States, the Biden administration is making active efforts to promote sustainability across many of its government departments and is moving to address climate change and its impact on various industries. In two early moves, the administration rejoined the Paris climate accord and suspended new oil and gas leases on federal land. Securities and Exchange Commission Acting Chairwoman Allison Herren Lee has appointed Satyam Khanna to a newly created post: Senior Policy Advisor for Climate and ESG. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is also reportedly planning to hire a Treasury Department climate czar.

Meanwhile, the UK government has demonstrated a clear desire to comply with global reporting standards, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer having confirmed that, by 2025, the United Kingdom will be the first country in the world to make compliance with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures1compulsory. Further afield, countries such as Canada and Sweden are taking steps to redefine the concept of fiduciary duty to reinforce that investment managers will breach their duty to investors by failing to consider ESG factors when making investment decisions. Meanwhile, the Japanese government is undertaking a study to explore a potential ESG disclosure framework.

However, Europe continues to lead the way in respect of both ESG investing and ESG regulation. Sustainable investment in the European Union is no longer optional but has instead become a focal point of the asset management industry in Europe. As a part of the European Commissions Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth in 2018, the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Regulation 2019/2088/EU) (SFDR or Regulation) was rolled out in a bid to make ESG investing more accessible and easier to understand.

Asset managers face a major challenge with the shift towards a global sustainability agenda: their fiduciary duties require them to pursue a clients financial objectives, and these objectives may or may not require a consideration of ESG factors. The SFDR framework integrates the concept that ESG factors may impact the value of investment, implicitly requiring that investment managers now take sustainability risks into account in their investment decision making process. Under SFDR, a sustainability risk is an ESG event or condition that, if it occurs, could cause an actual or potential material negative impact on the value of the investment and SFDR requires that asset managers disclose these sustainability risks as outlined below. Other important ESG-related changes are also on the horizon with respect to Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), and Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) rules. Whilst these are discussed further below, this is a constantly evolving area which continues to be monitored closely.

SFDR aims to clamp down on greenwashing (the act of conveying a misleading or false impression that a product is more environmentally sound than it actually is) by requiring greater transparency as to how sustainability risks and ESG factors are integrated into the investment decisions, advice, and wider business processes of asset managers.

SFDR is designed to achieve this goal by mandating for disclosures to be made by asset managers and financial advisers at an entity level regarding how they incorporate sustainability into the services they provide. Asset managers offering separate accounts or funds with a sustainable objective or with environmental or social characteristics will also need to disclose at the product level how those characteristics or objectives are met.

SFDR requires that these disclosure requirements are made by asset managers through a variety of methods including on websites and through pre-contractual disclosures such as prospectuses and annual reports. SFDR entered into force on 29 December 2019, and most substantive provisions of the Regulation applied from 10 March 2021.

In addition, there are Regulatory Technical Standards (also known as Level 2 measures)2which set out templates for required disclosure under SFDR. The earliest intended implementation date for these measures is 1 January 2022.

SFDR is applicable to MiFID II investment firms3,managers of UCITS, and alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs). The obligations of a firm under SFDR differ depending on whether the firm is providing discretionary portfolio management (referred to as a financial market participant or FMP) or non-discretionary investment advice (referred to as financial adviser or FA). For the purposes of this article, we refer to these entities collectively as asset managers.

SFDR applies in part to all asset managers and their financial products, with additional disclosure requirements for asset managers offering financial products which promote environmental or social characteristics, or that have sustainable investment, or the reduction of carbon emissions as an objective.

SFDR requires asset managers to make a number of sustainability-related disclosures, at both an entity level (disclosures required by asset managers) and a product level (disclosures required in respect of the funds and financial products asset managers manufacture and manage).

Asset managers need to make the following disclosures on their websites:

Information about their policies on the integration of sustainability risks into their investment-decision making process.4

A statement on their due diligence policies with respect to their consideration of the principal adverse impacts of their investment decisions on sustainability factors. This statement must include details such as: i) a description of the principal adverse sustainability impacts and actions taken or planned in relation to them, ii) information about their policies on the identification and prioritization of the principal adverse impacts and indicators, iii) a brief summary of their shareholder engagement policy, and iv) the level of adherence to responsible business conduct codes, internationally recognized standards on due diligence and reporting, and (if relevant) the degree of alignment with the Paris Agreement objectives. Firms whose average number of employees is under 500 are able to choose not to consider adverse impacts. However, firms that choose this approach must provide a clear explanation as to why they have chosen not to do so and whether this will change.5

Information on how their remuneration policies are consistent with the integration of sustainability risks.6

For all financial products (including UCITS, alternative investment funds (AIFs) and separately managed accounts subject to MiFID II regulation), disclosure regarding how the product considers principal adverse impacts on sustainability factors is required.7If adverse impacts are not considered, a clear and reasoned explanation will need to be provided.

Products that have ESG as a focus fall under Article 8 of SFDR (sometimes described as E/S funds) and Article 9 (or, as sometimes described, ESG funds). E/S funds promote certain environmental or social characteristics. For these funds, sustainable investment is not the primary objective, but sustainability remains an important and binding aspect of the investment process. ESG funds are financial products where the objective of the financial product relates to a sustainability objective or impact. Those products that do not have an ESG focus and therefore do not fit within Article 8 or Article 9, will fit within Article 6.

Article 6 applies disclosure requirements that are applicable to all types of investment funds. Article 6 requires that asset managers provide descriptions in pre-contractual disclosures regarding the manner in which sustainability risks are integrated into their investment decisions and the results of their assessment of the likely impacts of sustainability risks on the returns of all of their financial products. If the sustainability risks are deemed not to be relevant by the asset manager, clear and concise reasons need to be provided. Most asset managers are expected to satisfy this requirement through prospectus disclosure.

For E/S and ESG funds, there are additional disclosure requirements. These include:

For E/S funds: Disclosure in periodic reports regarding the extent to which environmental and social characteristics are attained or the overall sustainability-related impact of the product using relevant sustainability indicators (or, if an index has been used, a comparison between the sustainability-related impact of the fund with impacts of the designated index and a broad market index).8Pre-contractual disclosure for products which, among other characteristics, promote environmental or social characteristics or a combination of these, must include disclosure regarding how those characteristics are met and, if an index is used, the consistency of the index with those characteristics.9

For E/S and ESG funds: Disclosure on the websites of asset managers setting out (i) the environmental and social characteristics or the sustainable investment objective of each financial product; (ii) information on how those characteristics or objectives are met; (iii) information on the methodologies used to assess, measure, and monitor the environmental or social characteristics or the impact of the sustainable investments selected for the financial product, including its data sources and screening criteria for the underlying assets; and (iv) the relevant sustainability indicators used to measure the environmental or social characteristics or the overall sustainable impact of the financial product.10

For ESG funds: Pre-contractual disclosure for products with sustainable investment objectives must include information on how the investment objective is to be obtained where no index has been designated as a reference benchmark. If a designated benchmark is included, information on how the index is aligned with the objective should be provided, along with an explanation of how the index is aligned with the objective.11

Information regarding where the calculation of the indices can be found will need to be included in the pre-contractual disclosure for both products with sustainable investments objectives and products with environmental and social characteristics.

Asset managers should ensure that marketing documents do not contradict the disclosures required under SFDR. We suggest that firms include the review of marketing material in their project planning for SFDR.

On 4 February 2021, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) published the final draft of the technical standards which build on the framework regulation and provide firms with the detailed measures that look set to apply from 1 January 2022. These also need to be reviewed carefully and incorporated within project planning for SFDR and will be the subject of a further alert.

Regulation (EU) 2020/852 (the Taxonomy Regulation), which entered into force on 12 July 2020, is another key element of recent EU measures designed to encourage environmentally sustainable investment decision-making, by implementing a technical framework to help to ascertain how sustainable an economic activity is. The Taxonomy Regulation establishes an EU-wide taxonomy of economic activities that can be viewed as environmentally sustainable by reference to six economic objectives: (i) climate change mitigation, (ii) climate change adaptation, (iii) the sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources, (iv) the transition to a circular economy (v) pollution prevention and control, and (vi) the protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems.

The Taxonomy Regulation, which applies to FMPs but not to FAs, makes targeted amendments to SFDR that require asset managers to provide further pre-contractual and periodic disclosures for financial products that promote environmental and social characteristics, or have an objective of sustainable investment (in other words, E/S and ESG funds). FMPs will be obliged to provide information on the environmental objective to which the investment underlying the financial product contributes and a description of how and to what extent the investments underlying the financial product are in economic activities that qualify as environmentally sustainable under the Taxonomy Regulation.12

The Taxonomy Regulation also requires that all products which do not have an environmental focus make a disclosure stating that the investments underlying the financial product do not take into account the EU criteria for environmentally sustainable economic activities.13This disclosure will be a signpost to assist ESG-focused investors in identifying investments that do not have ESG as a focus, thereby accelerating the trend towards ESG investing in Europe.

The combined effect of the Taxonomy Regulation and SFDR will provide greater clarity to investors on the substance behind sustainability claims. The Taxonomy Regulation is intended to provide empirical evidence as to the underlying portfolios sustainability, while SFDR will expose the extent of an asset managers stated ESG-risk management for a product, consideration of the negative impacts of investment decisions on sustainability factors and key aspects of the products sustainability characteristics or objectives.

At the time of writing, the European Commission has delayed the application of Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) (the Level 2 measures), which set out more detail regarding how information under SFDR will be presentedwith 1 January 2022 being confirmed as the intended application date.14The application of the SFDR is not conditional on the formal adoption and entry into force of the Level 2 measures, meaning that some of the Level 1 requirements laid down in SFDR applied from 10 March 2021. Within the Level 2 measures, there are mandatory disclosure templates setting out how asset managers should set out their disclosures under SFDR.

Until 1 January 2022, the correspondence we have seen would suggest that in the absence of the Level 2 measures, firms should take a principles-based approach to compliance with those provisions of SFDR that rely on the implementation and technical standards details set out in the Level 2 RTS. This should be done on an evidenced best efforts basis.

In addition to the requirements under SFDR and the Level 2 measures described above, in June 2020 the European Commission published draft delegated acts, which once implemented, will amend the AIFMD,15the MiFID II,16and the UCITS Directive.17Broadly speaking, the proposed amendments seek to complement the manager-level requirements under SFDR, by clarifying and setting out how asset managers should integrate the active consideration of sustainability risk into compliance with the existing regimes.

Changes to the requirements of the UCITS and AIFMD regimes will involve integration of sustainability risks into processes regarding investment due diligence, organizational requirements, identification of conflicts of interests, and risk management policies.

The MiFID II amendments provide that sustainability preferences should be taken into account in the product oversight and governance process, and provide that both portfolio managers and FAs must take into account the clients sustainability preferences in carrying out suitability assessments.

An FAQ document published by the European Commission and the Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance provides that the disclosure obligations applicable to asset managers in the Taxonomy Regulation (which build on the respective obligations in SFDR) are applicable to anyone offering financial products in the European Union, regardless of where the manufacturer is based. This gives us an indication of the view at the level of the EU Commission and the direction of travel regarding the applicability of SFDR outside of the European Union.

As mentioned above, SFDR defines an alternative investment fund manager (AIFM) as one of the financial market participants to which SFDR applies. It is noted that the application of SFDR to non-EU AIFMs was recently flagged in a letter from the ESAs to the EU Commission as an area of uncertainty, that would benefit from urgent clarification to facilitate the orderly application of SFDR. A particular point requiring clarification is the applicability of the entity level disclosures to non-EU AIFMs. At the date of this Article, the EU Commission is yet to respond.

Until the EU Commission responds to the ESAs request for clarification, we anticipate that there are broadly two ways in which the SFDR could have the most impact on non-EU AIFMs and non-EU managers providing portfolio management to EU firms are as follows:

SFDR may directly apply to non-EU AIFMs (whether EU AIFs, or non-EU AIFs) marketing into the European Union under AIFMD national private placement rules. In this scenario, non-EU managers would be required to make product level disclosures as described above in respect of all AIFs registered for marketing in the European Union.

SFDR may also apply indirectly to non-EU investment managers providing portfolio management and non-discretionary investment advice to EU firms that are themselves subject to the new rules. For example, where a non-EU firm acts as a delegated investment manager to an EU AIFM or UCITS management company, it may be required to provide the information necessary to the EU management company to assist it in complying with disclosure requirements under SFDR. In this scenario, while the non-EU investment manager might not have a direct regulatory obligation to prepare the disclosures, it may be contractually required to do so by the delegating EU manager.

There may also be instances where investors in funds and/or segregated accounts managed by non-EU investment manager are themselves (directly or indirectly) subject to SFDR and the Taxonomy Regulation. Where this is the case, investors may, for the purpose of fulfilling their own SFDR and Taxonomy Regulation obligations, require commitments from non-EU investment managers to provide information, or to carry out certain responsibilities.

Under section 3 of the UK European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (EUWA), direct EU legislation (so far as it was operative immediately before 31 December 2020) now forms part of domestic UK law. The operative disclosure obligations under SFDR came into effect on 10 March 2021 and the disclosure obligations in the Taxonomy Regulation do not apply until 2022 (for climate-related environmental objectives) and 2023 (for the other environmental objectives). As a result, none of these operative disclosure obligations have become EU-retained law in the United Kingdom from 1 January 2021.

HM Treasury has previously expressed the view that a more flexible set of regulatory guidance on ESG disclosures may be more helpful than a prescriptive legislative framework. However, due to concerns around maintaining the UKs regulatory equivalence post-Brexit, it could be that the United Kingdom looks to adopt domestic measures that closely align with Level 2, on the basis that one considerably onerous (but uniform) regime may prove less problematic for the industry than two completely different ones.

There is, however, a clear desire of the UK government to comply with global reporting standards. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ritchie Sunak, has announced that Britain will be the first country in the world to make compliance with Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure compulsory for British companies by 2025. In addition, a green taxonomy will also be introduced which will take scientific measures from the EU taxonomy as its basis and a UK Green Technical Advisory Group will be established to ensure that those metrics are right for the UK market. The United Kingdom will also launch its first sovereign green bond this year, which will be used to finance projects tackling climate change, infrastructure, and to create green jobs.

In any event, in anticipation of these projects, as the European authorities currently intend for products marketed into Europe by non-EU firms to be subject to the Level 2 disclosure requirements, UK FMPs and FAs will need to factor the reforms into their activities until there is further clarity from the UK government. Practically, a UK firm may decide to comply with the SFDR voluntarily, due to pressure from investors or due to the global nature of its business.

Although SFDR is a welcome change in promoting transparency regarding the ESG practices of investment funds and preventing greenwashing, it is apparent that the draft RTS leaves much to be desired. Industry bodies have shared concerns that the highly detailed sustainability metrics are too prescriptive, and that the Level 2 currently fails to strike an appropriate balance between the importance of the comparability of funds and ensuring that disclosures remain meaningful. Although the United Kingdom has the opportunity to re-strike the balance following the transition period, it remains unclear whether it will decide to do so.

Over time, as there is an increasing movement towards more standardization in the industry in ESG related disclosures, it may be that non-EU investors also request the same level of disclosure from asset managers.

1The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures is an organization that was established in December of 2015 with the goal of developing a set of voluntary climate-related financial risk disclosures which can be adopted by companies so that those companies can inform investors and other members of the public about the risks they face related to climate change. The organization was formed by the Financial Stability Board as a means of coordinating disclosures among companies impacted by climate change.

2Final Report on Draft Regulatory Technical Standards, ESMA, 2 February 2021.

3Firms authorised pursuant to the EU Markets in Financial Instrument Directive (recast) (Directive 2014/65/EU).

4Article 3, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Regulation 2019/2088/EU).

5Article 4, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Regulation 2019/2088/EU).

6Article 5, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Regulation 2019/2088/EU).

7Article 7, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Regulation 2019/2088/EU).

8Article 11, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Regulation 2019/2088/EU).

9Article 8, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Regulation 2019/2088/EU).

10Article 10, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Regulation 2019/2088/EU)

11Article 9, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Regulation 2019/2088/EU).

12Article 5, Taxonomy Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2020/852).

13Article 7, Taxonomy Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2020/852).

14Final Report on Draft Regulatory Technical Standards, ESMA, 2 February 2021.

15Sustainable finance obligation for alternative investment funds to advise clients on social & environmental aspects,European Commission, July2020.

16Sustainable finance obligation on investment funds to advise clients on social & environmental aspects,European Commission, July2020.

17Sustainable finance obligation for mutual funds to advise clients on social & environmental aspects, European Commission, July 2020.

The rest is here:
European ESG Disclosure Regime in a Post-Brexit World - The National Law Review

EU foreign policy chief said he would hold further talks on the issue with Kiev's top diplomat. (FILE)

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday pledged the bloc's "unwavering" support for Kiev as he expressed major worries over Russian troop movements around Ukraine.

"Following with severe concern the Russian military activity surrounding Ukraine," Borrell tweeted after a phone call with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

"Unwavering EU support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Borrell said he would hold further talks on the issue with Kiev's top diplomat and foreign ministers from the EU's 27 nations at a meeting later this month.

Ukraine this week accused Russia of massing thousands of military personnel on its northern and eastern borders as well as on the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.

The Kremlin did not deny the recent troop movements, but insisted that Moscow was "not threatening anyone".

The reports of a buildup have swirled amid an escalation of armed clashes along the front line between Ukraine's forces and Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country.

The long-simmering conflict has claimed more than 13,000 lives since 2014, according to the United Nations.

Western leaders -- including new US President Joe Biden -- have said they are standing by Ukraine.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Waiting for response to load...

Read the original post:
European Union Has "Severe Concern" Over Russian Activity near Ukraine - NDTV

The Czech government on Tuesday approved the first easing of its tight lockdown in one of the European Union s hardest-hit countries, allowing at least some children to return to school.

Its not a full relaxation, Health Minister Jan Blatny said. The situation hasn't been ideal yet."

Starting Monday, people in the Czech Republic will be allowed again to travel to other counties and the night-time curfew will end. The measures took effect at the beginning of March as the Central European nation was desperate to slow down the spread of a highly contagious virus variant first found in Britain.

With numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients on the decline, the Czechs have offered to treat patients from other European countries where infections have been on the rise, Blatny said, offering up to 50 beds.

The number of COVID-19 patients in Czech hospitals dropped to 5,700 on Monday, down from 9,500 a month ago. A month ago, European countries including Germany, Switzerland Austria Poland and Hungary offered similar help to the then-struggling Czech health system.

Despite the recent decline, the Czech Republic still has the highest number of cumulative deaths (252.7) per 100,000 people in the world and the third-highest number of cumulative cases (14,509.5) again per 100,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The nation of 10.7 million has 1.56 million confirmed cases with over 27,000 deaths.

Education Minister Robert Plaga said the children up to the fifth grade will be back at schools on Monday under strict conditions to make their return safe and permanent.

All will have to wear face masks and will be tested twice a week, Plaga said. To start, students will return on a rotating basis, in school one week and distance learning the next.

Stores selling children's clothes and shoes, laundries, outdoor farmers' markets, zoos, botanical gardens and some other stores will be allowed to reopen Monday.

An advisory group of scientists at the Health Ministry cautiously agreed with the careful school reopening but said the situation still hasnt been good despite the gradual decline (of infections). But it was not consulted on many other easing measures.

Epidemiologist Rastislav Madar, a member of the group, told the Czech public radio that the relaxed measures pose a risk because the numbers (of infections) are still too high.

___

Follow APs pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

Here is the original post:
Czechs partially ease lockdown; kids to return to school - The Independent

BELGRADE President of Serbia Aleksandar Vui is the leading source of information and creator of narratives about the European Union in that country, ranging from the events in which he participated, to EU assistance in the COVID-19 pandemic. There is also a big difference between pro-government and critical media on reporting on these topics. These are the most important conclusions of the research on the reporting of media portals in Serbia on the EU in 2020, conducted by the Centre for Contemporary Politics.

You can find the research on this link.

The research analyses the question of which topics are playing the central role in the media coverage of the EU, as well as the question on their content and dominant narratives. The research included the analysis of 18 web pages of media outlets, the ones with the highest readership and the others that have a significant impact on public discourse. The research covered the period from January 1 to October 31, 2020.

When the media wrote about the EU, one of the main topics was related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The research of the Centre for Contemporary Politics showed the presence of highly emotional pro-Chinese and anti-European narratives related to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the differences between the media regarding the reporting on these topics and the presence of government representatives in their interpretation.

Overall, the pro-government media, and especially the tabloids, are leaning towards reporting that criticizes the EU with a lot of emotion and praises its rival actors in Serbia, mainly using the allegations of state officials. Thus, the EU is portrayed as an entity that often conditions Serbia and asks it to give up key identity symbols (Tesla, Kosovo), as well as its traditional friends (China and Russia), for the sake of membership in that organization, while inconsistently and unjustifiably criticizes it (for buying weapons from Russia and China) and leaves it stranded in times of crisis (COVID-19), the research states.

What is singled out as another conclusion is the role of President Aleksandar Vui as the predominant source of information and the creator of the narrative about the EU, which came to the attention when the aid for fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic was arriving in Serbia.

When it comes to the headlines about donations and aid that was coming from the EU, they were moderate, and they usually summarized the general information Aid from the European Union has arrived, EU donated funds to Serbia. The help provided by the EU was taken for granted, without any sentimental expressions of gratitude, it is stated in the research of the Centre for Contemporary Politics.

On the other hand, the CCP points out that when the aid arrived from China, the sources, narratives, and even sentiments were completely different.

The narrative was marked by praise and gratitude that Vui expressed to China. As he was the main source of information about Chinese aid, the media transmitted his statements in their entirety, with frequent headlines about friendship made of steel and brotherly love between China and Serbia, it is stated.

The research also presents the biggest peaks the days when the media reported the most on the EU. This analysis can provide insights into which topics contribute the most to media coverage on the EU. Also, key topics were presented and analyzed, such as the EU facilitated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, the European Commission 2020 Report on Serbia, the Summit in Zagreb, and how the media reported them, and what narratives the media created.

Analyzing media coverage of the European Union is extremely important, bearing in mind that Serbias EU accession is one of the most important proclaimed strategic goals of Serbia in recent decades, taking into consideration the lack of support for this process and that the scepticism about its success has reached worrying proportions, it is stated in research.

Here is the original post:
Serbian media coverage of the EU in 2020: Love from China and slaps from Brussels - European Western Balkans

A senior European Union official has sounded the alarm over the rapid decline of Australias Great Barrier Reef while backing calls for all countries to make more ambitious cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

The EUs commissioner for environment, oceans and fisheries, Virginijus Sinkeviius, told Guardian Australia he was deeply concerned by the threats facing the Great Barrier Reef. As long as we do not change our behaviours, things will not improve, he said.

Sinkeviius hopes Australia will sign up to the 84-country Leaders Pledge for Nature a document that calls for a green and just recovery from the Covid-19 crisis and stronger political will to act against the crises of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation and climate change.

The leaders pledge backs the objective of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. That is a target the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, has said is his preference, but he has resisted making a formal commitment amid divisions within his government over climate policy.

Sinkeviius spoke to Guardian Australia after the EU joined the International Coral Reef Initiative, a grouping of countries and organisations that aims to preserve coral reefs and related ecosystems. Australia was one of eight governments that co-founded the initiative in 1994.

I am deeply concerned by the threats facing the Great Barrier Reef, Sinkeviius said. Perhaps no coral reef on the planet is better known, certainly here in Europe, than the Great Barrier Reef.

Sinkeviius said coral reefs in general, and the Great Barrier Reef in particular, were emblematic of rich marine life.

Yet the rapid degradation of these beautiful and essential underwater worlds is also a very stark reminder of the pressures that human activity is placing on our shared planet, not least our oceans, he said.

Coral reefs are under threat because of our activity as humans, our unsustainable ways of living, producing and consuming. As long as we do not change our behaviours, things will not improve. This is in our hands, and we must seize responsibility and rectify these negative impacts.

The world heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef is the worlds largest coral reef system but is under increasing pressure from climate heating that caused mass bleaching events in 2016, 2017 and 2020. A government report card released in February found the marine environment along the coastline remained in poor health.

Asked whether concerns about the Great Barrier Reef should help motivate all countries to increase the level of ambition in their greenhouse gas reduction commitments, Sinkeviius said: I would hope so.

He said the European Commissions European Green Deal included a pledge to make Europe the first carbon-neutral continent by 2050 a goal he described as ambitious, yet one that is absolutely necessary.

Sinkeviius said he had been happy to see its wider impact in engagements with partners around the world and had been pleased to see that China and the US had set deadlines for net zero emissions 2060 and 2050, respectively.

But he said it was also important to acknowledge that our emissions have already had an impact on climate.

Such impact will continue for decades, even if global and European efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions prove effective. Hence substantial adaptation efforts are therefore still required. Our cooperation in the International Coral Reef Initiative and other fora will remain essential in this regard.

Sinkeviius said the EU looked forward to close cooperation with Australia, currently a co-chair of the reef initiative.

He said the EU was already working with Australia on research initiatives, including providing at least 280m ($432m) over three years to a project led by the Institut de recherche pour le dveloppement in France.

The project, in partnership with the Australian Institute of Marine Science, is examining the genetic response of corals to ocean warming.

Sinkeviius said the EU and Australia were longstanding supporters of conserving the unique ecosystems and rich marine biodiversity of the Southern Ocean, including the reefs of cold-water corals and seamounts that form key habitats for an array of creatures found nowhere else on Earth.

The commissioner called for an ambitious agreement on a post-2020 global biodiversity framework at the next meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), due to be held in October in the Chinese city of Kunming.

The EU is pressing for ambitious, and where feasible, measurable and time-bound targets to effectively address the drivers of biodiversity loss.

Sinkeviius said the EU was striving for overarching objectives to galvanise support at the highest political level and among the wider public - similar to the 1.5C target for climate change.

We are at a turning point, and the upcoming COP15 must be the Paris moment for biodiversity, he said.

He said the UN Biodiversity Summit held in September last year was an important event to build momentum as well as to foster strategies to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic that are green and consistent with climate and biodiversity objectives.

The EU invites Australia to join the Leaders Pledge for Nature published in September 2020 and already endorsed by 84 countries, he said, referring to a pledge whose supporters include Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

In addition, the EU also invites Australia to join the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, which is raising the global ambition to achieve at least 30% protection of land and oceans.

The High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, whose members comprise 57 countries or blocs including the UK and France, calls for that goal of protecting at least 30% of worlds land and ocean to be achieved by 2030.

Mobilising resources ahead of the COP15 will be of key importance and we also count on Australia to join international efforts to ensure adequate support to developing states, Sinkeviius said.

Australias minister for emissions reduction, Angus Taylor, told an international event late on Wednesday that Australia was firmly committed to getting to net zero as soon as possible and preferably by 2050.

But, Taylor said, Canberras focus was very much on the how of such a transition. The minister pledged $1m towards a clean energy transitions program overseen by the International Energy Agency.

Read the original:
European Union official sounds alarm over threats to Great Barrier Reef - The Guardian