Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg's Minister of Foreign and European Affairs;
Credit: SIP
Luxembourg's Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs have confirmed that, on Friday 5 February 2021, Minister Jean Asselborn participated in the “Global Engagement & Empowerment Forum on Sustainable Development (GEEF)” co-chaired by the “Institute for Global Engagement & Empowerment (IGEE)” and the “Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens”.
This forum, held online this year, is an annual international event bringing together international leaders, experts and young people interested in working together to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Agenda 2030).
During the forum round table on the theme of carbon neutrality ("Towards Carbon Neutrality for Planetary Sustainability"), Minister Asselborn took stock of current international trends in decarbonisation and spoke in favour of enhanced multilateralism, the main tool for protecting the climate and fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change is a problem without passports and without borders, which shows us once again that global problems require global solutions", underlined the head of the Luxembourg diplomatic corps, before adding "only multilateral mechanisms can help us achieve our objectives". He also underlined the need to rethink our traditional concept of security as the link between climate and security, further strengthened by the effects of the pandemic crisis, is felt especially in developing countries.
Regarding the innovations advocated by Luxembourg, Minister Asselborn highlighted concrete solutions in terms of energy transition, official development assistance, international trade and sustainable finance.
The Minister concluded his intervention by stressing that the year 2021 is a year of truth for the climate and that, in view of the COP26 in Glasgow, the international community should step up its efforts to achieve an ambitious and coherent result. Jean Asselborn insisted that for Luxembourg it is essential to adopt a human rights-based approach in the fight against climate change. In this context, the Minister recalled that sustainable development and climate action based on human rights are among Luxembourg's priorities as part of its candidacy for election to the Human Rights Council for the 2022 - 2024 mandate.
