Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade RGOB
The Bhutanese delegation led by Lyonpo Yeshey Dorji, Minister for Agriculture and Forests is attending the United Nations Conference on Climate Change Conference of Parties 21 (COP 21) in Paris. The COP 21 is in the final week and will conclude on 11th December 2015.
Speaking at the High Level Segment of COP21/CMP11 to UNFCCC in Paris on December 7, 2015, Lyonpo Yeshey Dorji urged the countries to speed up the negotiations to deliver an ambitious and legally binding agreement. Lyonpo highlighted Bhutan’s extreme vulnerability to effects of climate change on account of being land locked and its fragile mountain ecosystem. Lyonpo said that mountain states like Bhutan were more susceptible to increase in global temperature and called for the global community to set the global temperature increase target to 1.5 degrees as against 2 degrees being proposed by some of the countries, failing which it will have catastrophic impact on Bhutanese economy and people’s livelihood.
Lyonpo also highlighted the important pledges made by Bhutan in its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) such as remaining carbon neutral and preserving 60% of the country under forest cover for all times to come.
Lyonpo cautioned that if the concerns of small and vulnerable states like Bhutan are not taken into consideration, climate change threatens to derail the significant economic gains Bhutan has made over the last few decades and may prevent its goal of graduating from the LDC status by 2020. Lyonpo called on all the parties to take strong action to deliver an ambitious, equitable and fair and legally binding agreement in Paris.
On the sidelines of COP 21, Lyonpo Yeshey Dorji will be holding bilateral meetings with leaders from Sweden, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, Austria and European Union among others including multilateral agencies, to discuss bilateral relations including issues related to Climate Change.
Lyonpo will also sign the Joint Declaration European Union – Kingdom of Bhutan Cooperation on Climate Change” later in the week.