Signing Ceremony Annual EU Day for the Victims of the Global Climate Crisis in the presence of Selvin HART, the Special advisor to the UN Secretary-General, Teresa RIBERA, Third Deputy Spanish Prime Minister, Spanish Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, Marc ANGEL, Vice President of the European Parliament. For any use not related to news coverage, music rights should be cleared in advance. Information at mediatheque@ec.europa.eu

Brussels

TIMMERMANS, Frans (NL, EC)

ceremony

signature

fight against climate change (T)

ANGEL, Marc (S&D, LU)

RIBERA, Teresa (ES)

Signing Ceremony - Annual EU Day for the Victims of the Global Climate Crisis

Introduction and performance of "Mater Dolorosa - Rain Requiem"

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, Thank you very much. And thank you so much, ladies, for this wonderful performance. Deputy Prime Minister, Vice-President and Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for all, all being here. Three institutions of the European Union have decided that on the 15th of July from now on, we will commemorate annually the victims of the climate crisis.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, Why the 15th of July? Because exactly two years ago, on the 15th of July, four of our Member States were hit by torrential rains. You know, these so-called static rains, enormous amounts of water pouring down in one place. And as a consequence of that, in especially Belgium and Germany, more than 200 people lost their lives. Now, this was an event caused clearly by the climate crisis.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, And the climate crisis has a propensity to create many, many erratic weather patterns. It doesn't mean that every individual storm that hits Europe or hits other parts of the world is directly attributable to the climate crisis. But it is a fact that weather patterns are changing and changing rapidly. It's also fact that the temperature is on the rise. We've had, I think, four of the hottest days ever on record last week.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, We see people dying because of heat stress. We see arable lands disappearing and the risk of people starving because of that, is increasing. We see also wildfires causing deaths. We also see that, for instance, excessive heat has a huge influence on society. Whenever the heat goes up, extremely gender based violence increases.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, And all these things are linked to the fact that our climate is changing and changing so rapidly. And when we say this is a European day, we say to commemorate all victims worldwide. And we do have the hope that this idea of an annual commemoration of those who perished will also take hold in other parts of the world. This is important to us.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, Now, we are all part of the circle of life. We are born and at some point we die. If we are lucky enough to be able to live life's full circle, then we are still mourned when we die. People will miss us. People will mourn. But if death occurs because of accidents, prematurely, especially if it affects children, this creates such suffering, such mourning, you know, for parents. The natural thing of life is that you die before your children.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, If that doesn't occur and the opposite occurs, this is a heartbreaking thing. And this is happening more and more across the planet, also as a consequence of the climate crisis. Now, the music you've heard is part of an incredible piece, the text is written by a Belgian writer whom I deeply admire, David Van Reybrouck. What he did is, after the floods, he took the time to go and speak to the people in the affected area of Belgium, went to their homes, asked them what happened ask their feelings, and spoke to a mother who had lost a son, etc., etc.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, And he took their words literally and put them in literature. So the strength of those words is incredible. But, emphasised, increased enormously by the wonderful music by Jeff Nava. And this created an opera, I would call it, that would have value for the whole world to hear, because it's the testimony of people who underwent such a horrible event, quite literally using their words and how David then would and I say the English but it's originally in Dutch and French.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, But he says, forgive us friends, for we know what we do. Of course, you know the biblical reference, it says, we don't know what we do, but forgive us friends, for we know what we do. Forgive us friends. For We do not what we know. Or in French. But an enormous Amilcar knew Saville's confusion, but only knew Miami Cardinal, an official PA school of several. In other words, we know what's happening and we're not acting in a commensurate way to this.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, And that's why we're having also the meeting here today. To get the international community to react in a way that is commensurate to the challenge we face. Humanity still has an opportunity to not descend into climate disaster. But that can only happen if we act now. And we owe it to all those who have fallen victim and who will fall victim in the future.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, and Commissioner for Climate Action Policy, We owe it to them. To commemorate them and to use the memory of their sacrifice as a driving force to do the right thing for the next generations. We owe it to those who we've lost to be good ancestors, to those who are still to come. Thank you very much.

SOUNDBITE (English), Teresa RIBERA, 3rd Spanish Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Thank you, Alina. I thank you all for being for here today. Thanks, Frans for these very beautiful words that come out to just such a beautiful song, such a beautiful performance. It is a day of emotion. It is a day to remember those who lost everything, who lost their lives two years ago. It is also a day to remember us when we talk about climate justice we do not talk about something abstract that does not touch. There will be enough many people in the world.

SOUNDBITE (English), Teresa RIBERA, 3rd Spanish Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, We are used to this. Climate justice is something, I say pact is an agreement to deal between generations, which of course it is. Or if it is something that deals among members of the international community or even members of the society that we belong to. Of course it is all of that.

SOUNDBITE (English), Teresa RIBERA, 3rd Spanish Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, But climate justice also relates to very concrete aspects of the day to day life, or even the day to day life from death, from life to death. And I think that this is part of what Frans was also trying to say. It is not only the main purpose to indicate that we need to devote and homage to those that lost their lives, even without knowing and being conscious that what it was happening heatwaves, flooding.

SOUNDBITE (English), Teresa RIBERA, 3rd Spanish Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Or something related to climate is that we know what this means. We know how to act. And we need to act. We need the hope. We need to act. We need to say to those that fear of climate change in such a deep manner that they get frozen, they get contesting even the fact that climate change does exist, that this is not the wisest manner to deal with something that creates fear, that raises fear among human beings.

SOUNDBITE (English), Teresa RIBERA, 3rd Spanish Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, We need to see that this is something that is ongoing because for a very long time we did a development that was not compatible with climate security. But today we know how to react and how to play differently and we need to be along those people that have the fear to react, to fight climate, to contest scientific facts, to contest researches, that what we are playing with is much more than a dialectic discussion between different people.

SOUNDBITE (English), Teresa RIBERA, 3rd Spanish Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, We are talking about life and death. We are talking about food security. We are talking about, as George Lakoff was saying, being this polar bears in the room. We are talking about the capacity, the energy of the human beings to react against climate change. Now, sometimes we get into such as small detail discussion that we tend to forget the most important thing, that this is not something that that is going to disappear just because we don't like what we see.

SOUNDBITE (English), Teresa RIBERA, 3rd Spanish Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, We need to be quite activist, quite vocal. We need to join forces. This is not a discussion between different political sentiments. This is not a sentiment different from different regions of the world. This is being human beings or not being. So I would like to stress all the condolences, the sentiment, the love to those who are close to people who are not here today because of the effects of climate change.

SOUNDBITE (English), Teresa RIBERA, 3rd Spanish Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, And I want to stress also the full commitment of the institution that I represent today, the 27 governments of this 27 Member States, but also, I'm sure, talking also on behalf of all of you and many people in many other places of the world, to commit, to engage, to do our utmost of our capacity and efforts to be sure that this day is a good to remember people that are not with us, but also a day to remember all the improvements that we are capable to do, so to avoid people not being with us.

SOUNDBITE (English), Teresa RIBERA, 3rd Spanish Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Thank you so much for thinking about this possibility, thinking about the possibility to join in this common effort and of course, this global commemoration coming from Europe is something to share with all of you, and it is something to come back together. Thank you so much.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marc ANGEL (S&D, LU), Vice President of the European Parliament, Dear Executive Vice President and Deputy Prime Minister, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. It's a big honour for me to represent today the European Parliament. Our President, Roberta Metsola, apologises for not being with you and she asked me to do that, and I'm very happy to be here at this important ceremony.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marc ANGEL (S&D, LU), Vice President of the European Parliament, You know, tackling climate change is already in our Treaty of the European Union, and this is very important. Before I was a member of the European Parliament, I come from national politics and I know how important it is in our Member States that we've got this incentive coming from Brussels to do environmental policies. And I think in most of our Member States, we wouldn't have that legislation if it wouldn't be for the work which has been done by the Commission, by the Council and by the European Parliament.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marc ANGEL (S&D, LU), Vice President of the European Parliament, We voted this 15th of June, a resolution in the European Parliament where we called for an annual day for the victims of the global climate crisis to be established. And it's wonderful to see here now that the three institutions, they are sharing this this idea. And and I think, as Frans Timmermans also said, this should not be only a European day, but we should have it, it should be a global day, because both the North and the South signed the 2030 agenda.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marc ANGEL (S&D, LU), Vice President of the European Parliament, So we are giving the incentive, but I hope this will be a day which will be celebrating the victims, not only in Europe, you mentioned this, they are more and more in the news, but also the victims in other parts of the world. So I would also like to say that I was very active during the conference on the future of Europe. You know, this conference where 900 citizens were chosen and discussed about the future of Europe.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marc ANGEL (S&D, LU), Vice President of the European Parliament, One third of the citizens were young people between 16 and 25 plus we had a multi-language digital platform where people could react. And what was the biggest worries of the Europeans, number one and number two was climate change and social inequalities, the SDG agenda. That is what people are worried about in Europe.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marc ANGEL (S&D, LU), Vice President of the European Parliament, And therefore we have this with some responsibility that we should not get tired and that we should continue working towards having better legislation, better protecting our planet and our planet, as I said before, and as we all know, it's not only our little small European continent.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marc ANGEL (S&D, LU), Vice President of the European Parliament, We also know that we had a big victory yesterday in the European Parliament and I am coming from the Parliament. And when you represent the President, you can only talk about the official position of the Parliament. Well, now the official position of the Parliament is that we supported the nature restoration law. I think this is important legislation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marc ANGEL (S&D, LU), Vice President of the European Parliament, And I hink all the colleagues working on it in the Parliament will be happy to come into the negotiations with the two of you, and I am sure that we will have successful legislation at the end. Let me now make sure that also from the Parliament side, of course, we pay tribute to all the victims, to the parents and who lost their children, to children who lost their parents during incidents due to the climate crisis.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marc ANGEL (S&D, LU), Vice President of the European Parliament, We are with them and we will continue supporting them. And I think this is a very important day. So thank you very much for inviting the Parliament. Thank you very much also for the wonderful musical programme, I believe France you chose, that is excellent and thank you so much. And I'm really excited also to signing the Declaration. Thank you very much.

SOUNDBITE (English), Selvin HART, the Special advisor to the UN Secretary-General, Thank you so much, and good afternoon. Executive Vice, Deputy Prime-Minister,Mr. Vice President, Excellencies, colleagues. And please let me convey on behalf of the Secretary General his full support to this commemoration of the day of the victims for the victims of the global climate crisis.

SOUNDBITE (English), Selvin HART, the Special advisor to the UN Secretary-General, And this is a sad day for all of us, but especially for those who lost a loved one or a friend some two years ago. One of the sad realities of the climate crisis is that those that have contributed the least to the climate crisis are already paying the heaviest price and are already bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. The frequency and intensity of climate related disasters is increasing globally. No country is immune.

SOUNDBITE (English), Selvin HART, the Special advisor to the UN Secretary-General, It's happening on every continent and every region and in every country. And, yet global emissions continue to rise. Despite what we're seeing, global emissions continue to rise. The use of fossil fuels continue to increase and the scale of the investments that are absolutely and urgently needed to protect lives and safeguard livelihoods, they're not being made at the absolute scale that is needed.

SOUNDBITE (English), Selvin HART, the Special advisor to the UN Secretary-General, So the good news is that we're the first generation that know with certainty the impact of our actions on the global climate system. And we're the first generation that can actually do something about it to solve the climate crisis. But it requires leaders to act now, as Frans said, and to take and make the decisions and choices that protect the public interests rather than protect the interests of those who continue to profit from carbon pollution.

SOUNDBITE (English), Selvin HART, the Special advisor to the UN Secretary-General, So on this day to commemorate those victims of the climate crisis, we must commit to act now, to act boldly and act with a sense of urgency. We cannot and must not condemn young people and future generations to a future they cannot fix. We cannot pass on a planet to young people and future generations that is broken beyond repair.

SOUNDBITE (English), Selvin HART, the Special advisor to the UN Secretary-General, We have a moral obligation to act, and we have a moral obligation to act now. So I urge you to use this day, and to use this moment to raise your voices and use whatever tools are at your disposal, whether you're a parliamentarian, a policymaker or a decision maker to push for urgent and ambitious responses to the climate crisis. We know what to do. We have the tools to fix this.

SOUNDBITE (English), Selvin HART, the Special advisor to the UN Secretary-General, But we need leaders to act and we need them to act now. So, this is the one thing that we all the victims, those victims that lost their lives, whose lives were cut short two years ago. And those victims around the world, wherever they are losing their lives or losing their livelihoods from the climate crisis. We owe them this. We must act now and we must do everything that it takes to respond to a climate crisis and pass on to future generations, a planet that is more secure and a planet that is healthier. I thank you so much.

The Signing of the declaration for the "Annual EU Day for the Victims of the Global Climate Crisis"

Close up with the signed declaration for the "Annual EU Day for the Victims of the Global Climate Crisis" (1 shot)

Musical performance of Purcell &ldquo;when I&rsquo;m laid in earth&rdquo;<br /><br />  <p></p>