Dimitrios ZEVGOLIS

Policy topics Dimitrios ZEVGOLIS is active on

What Dimitrios ZEVGOLIS has said (6)

• “But definitely, it is a weakness of the system that we have to to rely on presidencies and how strong they are in order to have this discussion develop all over the year. So we have strong expectations from the Brazilians now to, to to let this process rolling in the next in the next months, but also from the Australian presidency of the negotiations for the next year and eventually by the Turkish presidency. Yes. When it comes to climate finance, climate finance is omnipresent. There's no question that we will ever avoid discussing climate finance. We knew that before going there, even though that we don't have a mandate to discuss climate finance, that the adaptation finance requests were coming, and we were prepared for that now. I mean, even if we go back to the beginning of the convention climate, the issue of finance was present back then. I mean, developing countries were asking for the green back then. I mean, there is there is a long history on this issue. So it continues. I think what we have put forward with this cop, with this work program on climate finance actually will help to have these discussions, hopefully in a more sincere manner. I think that it is important to to show that it's not just the old annex two countries that that are contributors.”
  Debt relief for developing countries · EU climate aid for global South
• “We need to have this discussion that essentially we started last year with the Nwcg with a new collective goal. So this discussion will continue, and hopefully also this process that we have put forward with a discussion on the alignment of the climate of the finance flows with the Paris goals will also see its see a response there in in these discussions. But it's not going to be easy. We know that very well. And the fact that the US is out of the tent at this point is also So creating problems. And finally on on the whole process being complicated, being too heavy. I totally agree. I think that it has grown beyond proportions. Nevertheless, I think that this is a result of our success. The fact that we attract more the civil society. It's not any more a discussion among some officials and scientists, as it was probably in the 90s, in the early 2000. Now the whole world is looking at the cop. I can tell you. I can tell you as head of delegation, I'm receiving so many requests from citizens that they want to be part of our delegation, because there is no other way for them to join through the other channels. So there is going to be a lot of pressure for that in the future. And it's a positive thing. But yes, we need to find ways to be more efficient.”
  EU engagement with civil society · EU engagement with citizens
• “Yeah. Maybe. Two comments. I think when it comes to technology transfer and general, I would say that a topic that we really need to focus on is more international cooperation. As I mentioned earlier, there are ways to do that in the multilateral manner, but we see the weakness of the multilateral outcomes now. So we really need to focus more on Plurilateral ways and bilateral ways to enhance this international cooperation. I haven't given up on the hope that we can have multilaterally agreed outcomes that can help this international cooperation, but we we have a lot of other opportunities now. And our agreement, for example, with with India, hopefully, and other activities that we are undertaking, the Climate Club and many other ways can can lead to more transfer of capacities, more cooperation and better use of technologies worldwide when it comes to this comment about the use, surprise or no surprise to to the position of others in the cop. I'm not sure that I understand where it comes from, because we knew the positions of our partners of the other countries in the Cop, and we prepared for that. But that doesn't mean that we can get the outcome that we want, because this is a multilateral, multilateral process. So we have to negotiate and try to get the best outcome. Maybe there have been variations in in the way that some parties express their positions. I can tell you, for example, that I was expecting that the Caribbean countries would be a bit stronger in their demand for more climate action, for more mitigation.”
  EU-India relations
• “Thank you for the opportunity to address this audience. And thank you for the comments and the questions. And well, I will react to some of them, probably. I will not be able to catch all of them. But there was a comment on the geopolitics and I think that we, we really show how the geopolitics played in this cup in in the way that it evolved. And it was no surprise for us. I mean, for those that we have been following this process and engaging with the other parties across the whole year, of course, we have been seeing that this was coming. So I don't think that there has been any surprise for us when it comes to how the the cup evolved. The the signs were already there. We saw them in the cup. We showed them in the General Assembly in, in New York earlier and in all the technical discussions that we had earlier. So but it's it's real, the fact that we have tense, very intense geopolitics, all this turmoil that doesn't help to have strong outcomes in the cups. And when the geopolitics are being addressed, then we are able to have more united parties and having stronger outcomes. That's a truth of it's a fact. And what can we do in this case? Well, we have to keep the process going. We have to invest in it. But also we have to invest in the other fora.”
  EU-Russia relations (from March 2022) · EU foreign policy approach
• “We have to invest in the plurilateral fora, and we have to invest in the bilateral activities. And I think that that's where we need to as EU. Also, we need to put an extra focus now to engage more with China, to engage more with India especially. India has a very big role to play. Most probably the host of the Cop 33, which is going to be the global stocktake cop, is going to be the Cop where all these processes that we have put in place now are culminating the work programme on climate finance, the trade dialogues that we have started and we know very well that India is very sensitive to this issue, and they will put a lot of focus on that. So there there's a big challenge that we have ahead of us when it comes to Cop 33 in 2028. And and that brings me to the the five year cycle. So the five year cycle is there. Of course, we didn't propose to change the cycle. What we wanted was to find ways, given the urgency and the gap that we see, to be able to talk about that every year. These initiatives that the presidency is going to support with through the multilaterally agreed outcome of this cop. They are giving us a hope that we will be able to have these discussions in the next cop.”
  Trade relations with China · EU-India relations
• “And we saw at the end that they they didn't bring this strength. Well, there might be a reason for that. It might have to do with a big country that is neighboring to them. I would expect that maybe the least developed countries will be a bit more vocal, but at the same time, I know that they are. When it comes to the Africa group, there are some issues there that have to do with some domain dominating countries that come from other groups in these groups. So there are variations, of course, that we cannot expect how they will evolve during a Cope, but more or less we know the positions of the other parties, we prepare for them, and we knew that it's going to be very difficult. We knew that the EU will be finger pointed for the carbon border adjustment mechanism. We knew that the finance will become an issue that will unite many parties, and we responded to those. And I think that in that sense, we got the best outcome that we could get. And of course we have to do our Analysis. We are doing it all this time. We're going to have the Environment Council as well. And we we will try to do better as in the next time.”
  Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) · EU climate aid for global South