Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo called for optimism on the climate cause during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, where he also outlined plans for the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU next year.
Addressing UN delegates on Wednesday evening, De Croo spoke of the importance of winning the fight against climate change – one of the key topics of the meeting.
"Some people, also here in this room, are pessimistic about the state of the world today. I beg to differ. There are good reasons for optimism," De Croo started his speech at the UN on Wednesday evening, pointing out that there has been "tremendous progress" since the start of the new millennium.
There is more universal access to education than ever, he stressed, with 85% of young children now in primary education worldwide. He added that an additional two billion people have gained access to safe drinking water since the start of the century. "It shows that, if we put our minds to it and promises are followed by investments, we can make global progress."
However, he acknowledged that "the picture is not rosy across the board" and that "the changing climate is reason for concern," pointing to this year's forest fires in Greece, Spain, Canada and Hawaii, the floods in Libya and Hong Kong, and even to the long periods of drought and water shortages in Belgium.
"But let's look at the trends rather than the events: let's look at our recent climate track record and then we will see that there is a reason for grounded optimism," De Croo said. "A record-breaking €340 billion has been invested in renewable energy globally this year. Prices of renewables keep on going down year after year."
'The beginning of the end of fossil fuel'
Many climate analysts believe that carbon emissions will peak as soon as 2025 and will keep declining if investments in renewables continue, he stressed. "The chair of the International Energy Agency called it 'the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.' He said it shows that our climate policies do work."
"So we should stop listening to the alarmists who proclaim that all is lost, that we are on the road to nowhere. How can we expect public opinion to rally behind the climate cause with such blatant defeatism?" De Croo said. "We should not despair, we should organise. We should speed up the green transition instead of talking ourselves down."
Prime Minister Alexander De Croo delivers a speech at the 2023 United Nations General Assembly. Credit: Belga / Benoit Doppagne
Afterwards, he told VRT that "doom and gloom will not get anything moving" and that "we must not close our eyes to everything we are accomplishing."
De Croo also emphasised that industry is needed for the green transition: the sector's innovation is needed to find a solution to the climate problem. He also stressed, however, that Belgium will "remain a country of nuclear energy."
While the Federal Government initially planned to make the nuclear exit, they later struck a deal with Engie to keep the two largest nuclear plants open for longer. "To become climate neutral we need renewable as well as nuclear energy," said De Croo, who wants to cooperate more intensively with other countries committed to nuclear energy.
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He also focused on migration in his speech, arguing that the current migration model needs to be rebuilt and that this will be the main focus of the Belgian EU presidency from January to June next year. In Belgium, De Croo's government has been failing to provide asylum seekers with the shelter to which they are entitled for the last two years.
De Croo, together with Ministers for Development Cooperation Caroline Gennez, Foreign Affairs Hadja Lahbib and Economy Pierre-Yves Dermagne, is in New York to represent Belgium at the annual UN General Assembly.
In recent days in New York, he also urged the jewellery sector to ban Russian diamonds from international trade, and met with the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Félix Tshisekedi.
