EU meets on climate with countries in former Soviet sphere

LUXEMBOURG, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- For the first time, European ministers said they committed to working with non-member states near the eastern territorial border on greening up the economy.

The first meeting of ministers for the European Union and regional counterparts from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine was held in Luxembourg. All parties adopted a declaration to coordinate on climate and low-carbon initiatives aimed at promoting a sustainable and inclusive economy.

European ministers said coordinating with countries so close to the bloc's borders offered a broad-based approach to the fight against climate change.

"Environmental protection and climate action is not only our duty, it is a good investment that will result in new jobs, higher revenues, and a more resilient economy," EU Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy Johannes Hahn said in a statement.

Georgia, one of the so-called Eastern Partners to the EU, joined a European energy treaty last week that called for an integrated natural gas market. Suspected terrorists in Georgia were arrested for plotting attacks on area gas pipelines in August and the country may play host to a natural gas pipeline running to Europe from Azerbaijan, another Eastern Partner country.

At least half of the Eastern Partner countries have strong links to the Russian energy sector, a sector from which the EU aims to break free.

The regional low-carbon coordination comes less than a month after the EU ratified the Paris climate agreement, which calls on the global community to take action to address threats posed by a warming climate by cutting their emissions.

Eurostat, the European statistics office, said data from 2014, the last full year for which it published information, show the share of energy from renewable resources was 16 percent, about 89 percent above 2004 levels, the first year it started keeping records on renewables.

European member states are obligated to use renewable energy to meet 20 percent of their energy needs by the end of the decade.