Prominent Climate Voices Call for Ambition at COP23

Three of climate action's most prominent advocates today published an op-ed on the Thomson Reuters Foundation site calling for ambition and vision at COP23.

• Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC when the Paris Agreement was signed and current convener of the Mission2020 project
• Teresa Ribera, Director of think tank IDDRI and former climate and environment minister of Spain
• Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, COP President in Lima in 2014 and current Head of Climate and Energy at WWF

They use the op-ed to send a clear message to countries negotiating in Bonn over the next two weeks: just signing the Paris Agreement is not enough.

While much progress has been made so far thanks to country's climate plans, the trio argues that we only have until 2020 to transform our economies and save the world from the worst impacts of climate change. With that and recent extreme weather events in mind, countries need to show leadership on increasing the ambition of their national plans right now.

"Ambition is not blind determination, but rather the commitment to complete the transition combined with the confidence that it can be done. More ambitious policies must match two criteria. They must respond to short and medium term economic expectations and prepare the ground for greenhouse gas emissions neutrality in the second half of this century."

A video summary of the op-ed:



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