CPLP leaders pledged Saturday to accelerate implementation of climate action measures, including those approved by the United Nations, such as strengthening sustainable economic models and energy efficiency.
The heads of state and government of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), meeting today at the 13th summit of the community in Luanda, approved the Resolution on Climate Emergency in the CPLP, in which they recognize "the importance of an urgent and global response to the challenge of climate change.
Among the measures are "diversifying and strengthening sustainable economic models, enhancing the transition to sustainable food and farming systems and jobs, as well as accelerating energy transformation and efficiency, including low-carbon transport, and promoting sustainable production and consumption patterns."
The resolution also recommends "the adoption of medium- and long-term national strategies for climate action" that promote "increased climate resilience and adaptive capacity of populations" and the "creation of social and economic infrastructures that promote development models to achieve the goal of global carbon neutrality by 2050.
The member countries of the CPLP thus commit to accelerate the implementation of the decisions taken in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification or the United Nations Environment Assembly, including them in their legal systems.
In this sense, the CPLP leaders affirm the importance of "an urgent and global response to the challenge of climate change," supporting "with determination and ambition" the implementation of the Paris Agreement, and call for "a worldwide change of course to limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5ºC compared to pre-industrial levels.
They also pledge to "accelerate and make more effective cooperation among the member states" of the CPLP to strengthen the capacities of each country in the "development of national strategies and actions for adaptation and mitigation" of climate change.
The heads of state and government reaffirm "the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, caused mainly by fossil fuel consumption in developed countries.
According to the resolution, a concerted participation of CPLP countries in the multilateral meetings leading up to the United Nations Oceans Conference, to be held in Lisbon in June 2022, is an opportunity "to strengthen environmental policy commitments" and "to ensure a fair, inclusive and sustainable post-pandemic economic recovery."
The Lusophone Heads of State and Government also recommended the application of the principles defined in the CPLP Partnership for a Garbage-Free Sea, reiterating their concern with the serious economic and environmental impacts of marine litter and called for a joint position statement to be presented at the 5th Meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNIA), in February 2022, in Nairobi, Kenya.
The resolution states that the Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States of the CPLP "are among the countries with the greatest exposure and vulnerability to the climate and environmental crises," making it all the more urgent to comply with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 2063 African Development Agenda.
Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, and East Timor are part of the CPLP.