Submitted by rapporteurs:
Hakima el Haite (Mouvement Populaire)
Sven Gerst (International Federation of Liberal Youth)

From the Liberal Declaration of Oxford (1967) to the Andorra Liberal Manifesto (2017), LI has long been vocal on environmental issues. In 1990, during its Congress in Finland, delegates from member parties approved the Helsinki Declaration on the Environment, the first LI document exclusively focused on this topic.

On the occasion of the 200^th Executive Committee Meeting of the Liberal International in Berlin, we declare that:

Climate change is the most important challenge of our time. Its global consequences already affect the lives and well-being of millions of people now—and will affect the ones of countless people in the future. Besides its ecological implications, climate change will severely impact our economic and social spheres. This may include slowed economic growth, the forced migration of millions of people due to the consequences of climate change, increased risks for violent conflict, and political instability and isolation. Climate change is therefore not only an environmental or scientific issue. It is an ethical and political issue.

Therefore, it is an issue that demands responses from policy-makers globally as well as regionally. We therefore applaud the efforts of the international political community which recently accomplished one of their major successes with the UNFCCC Paris Climate Agreement. To combat climate change on a global scale, the Paris agreement aims to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees C. The 2030 Agenda, including the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate Change Agreement together constitute the most comprehensive multilateral agreements to date for eliminating extreme poverty, reducing inequality, and protecting the planet. We see sustainable development and climate change as deeply interconnected and interdependent phenomena. We therefore consider the Paris accord as a starting point for further global and regional initiatives. 

We liberals believe that to enable peace, security and prosperity in the coming century all economic activity will need to become low or zero emission. 

We know that all countries will need to take action to ensure adaptation and resilience to the impacts of the already certain increase in global average temperatures 

We acknowledge that the capacity of various natural ecosystems to act as sinks for existing concentrations of greenhouse gases will need to be enhanced. 

We recognise that because of existing gender inequalities that are perpetuated by customs, norms, social practices, and even economic structures, women are more vulnerable to climate change. Climate change directly impacts the ability of women to achieve their own human rights and increases gender inequalities

We agree that these outcomes will require action by a very broad network of committed stakeholders. 

We also agree that knowledge and technological progress play a vital role to achieve these outcomes.

We liberals believe that climate change is not merely an environmental issue but rather a complex social, economic and political issue. And thus, we are committed to a comprehensive set of principles that can tackle the issue of climate change in all its dimension/in a holistic manner. 

The principles of this Declaration are:

Optimistic (Cornucopian): We believe and trust in the unlimited capacity of human ingenuity and creativity to overcome the challenges of climate change, resource scarcity, and environmental degradation through technological and scientific progress. Our core concern must, therefore, be to find the institutional arrangements that enable individuals to tweak, innovate, and seek improvement. Hereby, we must learn from international best-practice sharing and competition between regions.

Human-centred (Anthropocentric): Human well-being must always be at the heart of liberal policy-making. We must, therefore, primarily consider (and tackle) the implications of climate change on human flourishing. We consider that climate change is threatening the right to education, health, peace and security. We also consider that climate justice links human rights and development to achieve a humanitarian approach, safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable people and sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its impacts equitably and fairly. 

Polycentricity (Institutional Competition): Liberals oppose centralised command & control regulation. Instead, we believe in decentralised decision-making, the incentives of private property, and local knowledge—because only when local communities are implicated in shouldering the joint responsibility and equipped with the ability to act, we can tackle the challenges of climate change in the most holistic manner. After all, we believe that that the local experience is superior in judging which institutional arrangement (government intervention, market solutions, or social norms) is best suited to tackle the particular instantiation of climate change. We firmly believe that only a global system of institutional competition between countries, regions, and cities will help us to discover new and innovative ways to deal with the various dimensions of climate change.

Guided by core principles of the Andorra Liberal Manifesto, we liberals commit to work to realise the vision of a world engaged in the advancing of climate justice and a low-carbon future in which no citizen is left behind.

We agree to the following Principles of Climate Justice adopted by the 200^th  Executive Committee of Liberal International

• We believe that each country must play its full and fair part, on the basis of the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, in global efforts to keep warming well below two degrees Celsius (2°C) relative to pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. To achieve this goal, our countries must rapidly reduce their carbon emissions.

• We support our countries’ ratification and implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement;

• We encourage our countries to submit their NDCS

• We will ensure that our countries, and non-state actors, have strong national policies to meet their global obligations.

• We accept our responsibility to help our countries meet their obligations and will ensure that all our national policies are low carbon oriented

• States and territories have an important role to play in cutting carbon pollution and building climate resilience in our communities. 

• The shift to a zero net emissions economy not only reduces climate risk, but also drives new investment and jobs growth. The renewable energy and new energy technologies sectors are some of the world’s fastest-growing sectors. 

• In each of our jurisdictions we commit to pursue climate goals in tandem with our other objectives encouraging low carbon technology. 

• We have different economies, resource endowments, and competitive advantages, and we recognise that our emissions reduction efforts must meet our industries’ and communities’ needs, including structural and social transitions that are fair and just. 

• We are in no doubt that sustained, strong action to reduce our carbon emissions and to understand and prepare for the impacts of climate change, will safeguard our collective wellbeing and prosperity now and into the future.