Latvia

Latvia

Minister of Environmental Protection and Regional Development

Dear Excellences, fellow Ministers, colleagues,

COVID-19 pandemic and this unprecedented situation constitutes for the world serious challenges.
Although the focus is now on fighting the pandemic, decisions on how to recover national economies following the COVID-19 crisis are crucial in moving towards climate neutrality and the implementation of the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Latvia fully supports the need to urgently step up ambition for climate action on a global scale.
Tackling climate change is one of the key priorities for Latvia. Our commitment to drive ambitious climate action remains.

Year 2020 is crucial for climate action. We expect all Parties to communicate updated NDCs in time for COP26 and submit long-term low greenhouse gas emission strategies to the UNFCCC this year that are coherent with the overall objectives of the Paris Agreement.
It is vital to give consumers, investors and businesses the necessary signals to accelerate the transformation towards a climate neutral future.
Despite the challenge COVID-19 crisis has brought upon us, climate proofing and ‘do no-harm’ principles must be used as the underlying criteria as we design national plans to recover our economies.
This is our opportunity to recover better, greener and more just. The investments we will now be putting in our economies are debt from future generations and we cannot leave them a world that is reliant on outdated, fossil intensive industries and technologies.
We must not allow the temporary reductions in emissions caused by the economic recession to lessen our efforts for strong action on climate policy. Experience from previous economic crises demonstrates that short-term emission reductions are offset by stronger emission growth in the following years. We cannot allow this to happen again.

Government of Latvia has recently endorsed number of initiatives to ensure economic recovery from challenges posed by COVID-19 crisis are in line with the climate objectives.
It includes allocation of funding to municipal investment projects aimed at increasing energy efficiency in multi-apartment buildings, creating public infrastructure and promoting business development in order to create new green jobs, supporting local producers and service providers, thus attracting more private investment to the regions.

Furthermore, COVID-19 has showed us all the importance of different digital solutions that could also enable transition to climate neutrality.
Digital solutions are already behind many novel public and private business models. Emerging technologies go hand in hand with new economy models to tackle environmental challenges.
Latvia highly appreciates the initiative of the Government of Japan to launch an Online Platform that could gather best practices and experiences from all over the world as we ensure the economic recovery helps us for implementation of the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Thank you!