Italy’s Prime Minister: I am pleased to see Azerbaijan as President of COP29
“It is most comforting to invite Azerbaijan to COP29 as a member of the climate for peace initiative," declared Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during the statement made at the 29th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Baku.
Passing on a thank you to Azerbaijan for hosting COP29, Giorgia Meloni recalled that the summit takes place in order to continue making progress toward the goal of a 1.5°C limit on warming: "We raised ambitious targets in Dubai: tripling the production of renewable energy globally and doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030. Everyone's collaboration and sufficient financial support are required, starting with greenhouse gas emissions. At COP29, we will attempt to set a new climate finance goal. To achieve a valuable agreement, the burdens must be distributed and differences settled among the developed, developing economies and nations”.
The Prime Minister stressed that her nation will continue to meet its obligations, stating, "We are already spending over 4 billion euros of our Climate Fund in Africa, continuing to support initiatives like the Green Climate Fund and the Loss and Damage Fund, and mobilizing multilateral development banks. But decarbonization needs to take just as much care over the sustainability of our production systems and social systems as well”.
“We need to preserve nature as well as humans. A highly ideological and unrealistic strategy has a possibility to lead us astray from the path to success. Neutrality in technology is the right policy, as of now there is no single substitute for the generation of fossil fuels. We need a realistic picture of the world. World population will be 8.5 billion and world GDP will double in the next decade by 2030. This will increase energy consumption, bearing in mind the growing need for artificial intelligence," she added.
Giorgia Meloni insisted that a diversified energy mix is needed to support the transition process: "We must use all the technologies that are available. Not only renewables, but gas, biofuels, hydrogen, CO2 capture, and nuclear fusion in the future, which will be capable of producing clean, safe, and unlimited energy. Italy is already a pioneer on nuclear fusion".
“We held the inaugural meeting of the World Fusion Energy Group as part of our G7 Presidency under the aegis of the International Atomic Energy Agency. We should develop new energy diplomacy to provide more chances for cooperation between the global North and global South. Our fates are connected and we can achieve enormous opportunities through the channel of energy relationship. Thus, the energy-climate link is one of the foundations of our 'Mattei Plan' for Africa, Italy's peer-to-peer cooperation policy," she said.
"As with all COPs, its success or failure will depend on us. We are aware we may never personally benefit from it for all that we do. But that is not what this is about. I am a mother, and as a mother, there is nothing more that I could possibly do than work on policies that will enable my daughter and her generation to live in a healthy world," the Prime Minister continued.
