Upon the invitation of Alok Sharma, President of the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Climate Change Convention (COP26), Slovenia’s Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning Andrej Vizjak is attending a two-day ministerial meeting which is to prepare and help align the positions of different regional groups and Parties to the Paris Agreement prior to the meeting of Parties in November in Glasgow.

On the second day of the informal meeting of EU environment and climate change ministers in Slovenia, discussions addressed the new proposal of global targets for the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. The ministers also discussed the challenges of jointly strengthening pollinator protection and setting up an EU-wide pollinator monitoring framework.

Slovenia hosted an informal meeting of environment and climate change ministers.

A political agreement with the European Parliament on the amendment of the Aarhus Regulation was reached as one of the first achievements of the Slovenian Presidency, which would not have been possible without the positive cooperation of the trio presidencies, as Germany reached an agreement at the Council, Portugal started negotiations with the European Parliament (EP) and Slovenia successfully concluded negotiations.

Today the European Commission unveiled the 'Fit for 55' package of climate and energy laws. The Slovenian Presidency welcomes the unveiled project, which is also a priority of the Presidency in the field of the environment and climate change. Given the importance of this legislative package, the first informal political exchange of views of the member states will already take place next week, on 20 July, at an informal meeting of environment ministers in Slovenia.

The Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning, Andrej Vizjak, addressed the participants of the two-day informal online meeting of the Climate Change Working Group. The purpose of the event was to present the work programme of the Working Group on International Environmental Issues in the area of climate change in the second half of 2021. Important items on the agenda included climate change adaptation, strengthening climate finance and finalising the Paris Rulebook.