EDITORIAL

Karl Falkenberg
General Director, DG ENVIRONMENT, European Commission

There is barely any need to insist on the seriousness of climate change. At the time we
are publishing this editorial, governments and international organisations are underlining
the imminence of the crucial UNFCC Climate negotiations in Copenhagen.  Yet, beyond
the hopeful perspective of a proper global agreement on the reduction of greenhouse
gases (GHG) emissions, the complexity and the scale of the problem weight on the
affirmation of a unique response and uniform solutions, as it is clear that each region
of the world is and will be affected in a specific way.  The contracting Parties of the Alpine
Convention, with the adoption of the Action Plan on Climate Change in the Alps, adopted
at the Xth Alpine Conference (Evian, March 2009) have started elaborating a collective and
specific strategy for a mountainous region highly sensitive to temperature variations. Such
changes bear consequences for alpine populations and their economical activities. They
also threaten the potential for carbon sequestration of the region, increase natural hazards
and disturb the water cycle equilibrium, thus possibly altering the ecosystem services that
the Alps provide to a large part of European plains and its cities. The Contracting Parties to
the Alpine wish to respond to the huge challenge of climate change in an exemplary way.

The European Union has engaged since the early 1990s in a GHG reduction policy based
on market rules and a community emission trading system, taking progressively a worldly
leadership in the climate battle. The Green Paper on adaptation to climate change (2007)
recognizes the vulnerability of the Alps and entrusts the local authorities with an essential
role. In turn, the objectives of the Action Plan on climate change in the Alps are complementary
to the objectives defined in the 2009 White Paper on adapting to climate change: developing
the knowledge base, exchange of information, energy, tourism, agriculture…
 
Several fields of collaboration are thus becoming tangible for these two organisations,
at the general policy level as well as the concrete level, such as the diffusion of good practices.

I wish the Alpine Convention friends much success in the implementation of the necessary
measures to win that major common aim.