The governments of Colombia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland convened a session of their bilateral mechanism of an annual High-Level Dialogue on August the 6th.
These talks sit under the UK-Colombia Partnership for Sustainable Growth, signed in June 2019, and mark its first anniversary, in order to strengthen our collaboration to halt deforestation, tackle environmental crime, value and understand the use of biodiversity while addressing climate change and building sustainable, inclusive and resilient economies.
Both sides reaffirm their strong commitment to progress the partnership in 2020/21, create momentum towards COP26 in Glasgow and share experiences on a green, fair and inclusive recovery from Covid-19.
Recognising the success of the partnership in 2019/20, the UK and Colombia agree to continue the UK-Colombia Partnership for Sustainable Growth for a second year and commit to:
- Maintaining and strengthening cooperation in accelerating the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and improving efforts on resilience, to secure sustainable and low carbon development in line with the aims of the Paris Agreement, and fostering sustainable growth.
- Maintaining and strengthening our cooperation towards greater climate ambition, recognising the importance of delivering a green, fair and inclusive recovery from Covid-19. We will continue to collaborate on tackling deforestation, strengthening environmental research and education, delivering the energy transition, developing sustainable mobility and responding to the needs of other priority sectors in Colombia, aiming at translating actions into emissions reductions towards a more ambitious NDCs and long-term strategies to achieve carbon neutral economies by 2050.
- Working together to identify domestic and regional mechanisms that deliver successful outcomes to effectively reduce deforestation and foster restoration, recognising Colombia's regional leadership in reducing the deforestation trend and protecting the Amazon rainforests. Both countries will jointly work to identify synergies, opportunities and links between climate and biodiversity, including through the CBD COP15, the UNFCCC COP26 and the renewed JDI.
- Jointly recognising the potential that Nature Based Solutions offer to increase ambition on tackling climate change, as well as supporting sustainable, inclusive livelihoods, helping to understand and protect biodiversity as well as enhancing the resilience and adaptation capacity of societies and ecosystems. We will work together to deliver ambitious outcomes under the NBS Campaign for COP26.
- Further developing Colombia's regional leadership on the Energy Transition and Sustainable Mobility, searching for new opportunities to reduce GHG emissions in these sectors, expanding non-conventional renewable energy sources, and promoting energy efficiency at every level.
- Providing guidelines for the Economic Reactivation and Repowering Policy developed by the Colombian Government with the purpose of bringing a focus on resilience and sustainability, promoting clean growth, involving sectors and actors at all levels of the economy while creating new jobs, sustainable supply chains and low-carbon biodivercities across the country.
- Advancing innovative green finance mechanisms and ways in which public and private finance flows can be further mobilised to enable the ambitious transformations that sustainable development and climate action require.
The governments of Colombia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland firmly believe that this Partnership is a concrete example of how a bilateral commitment for nature and sustainable growth can deliver mutually beneficial results, foster ambition globally and positively impact multilateral processes. Both Governments are optimistic that this partnership will grow to be an inspiration for other actors to increase ambition and protect the environment.
