President Piñera presents the Presidential Council for COP 25, the global climate change conference to be held in Santiago from December 2 to 13
The President welcomed the committee members at La Moneda Palace, including former presidents, ministers, members of Congress and representatives of the scientific community and civil society.
President Sebastián Piñera presented the Presidential Council for COP 25 on Monday. This Council will help define the guidelines and solutions for the organization of the world’s most important conference on climate change, which will take place this December in Santiago.
"We have set up a working group to advise the President of Chile, which will start working permanently and continuously as of today," said the President. He held a meeting with the 27 members of the council in La Moneda Palace.
"I would like to thank the members of this group for taking part and for their willingness and attitude. We hope that they will help to ensure that COP 25 is not only a conference that demonstrates the seriousness and responsibility of our country, but that it will also make a major contribution to the whole of humanity changing course and correcting its mistakes," he added.
The committee consists of Environment Minister Carolina Schmidt, Foreign Affairs Minister Roberto Ampuero, and Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation Minister Andrés Couve; former presidents Ricardo Lagos and Eduardo Frei; senators Guido Girardi and David Sandoval; congress deputies Sebastián Álvarez, Sebastián Torrealba and Catalina Pérez; the Comptroller General of the Republic, Jorge Bermúdez; the Regional Governor of Santiago, Karla Rubilar; former Minister of the Environment, Pablo Badenier; Undersecretary of Tourism, Mónica Zalaquett; Executive Vice-President of Chile's Economic Development Agency (CORFO), Sebastián Sichel; scientist and director of the Center for Climate Science and Resilience (CR2), Maisa Rojas; President of the Industry and Trade Confederation (CPC), Alfonso Swett; founder and director of Puerto Ideas, Chantal Signorio; Founder and CEO of fiiS, Jonathan Hertzfeld; Founder and General Manager of Gulliver, Leonardo Maldonado; the Director of WWF Chile, Ricardo Bosshard; a representative of the Lonko Kilapang Corporation, Andrés Antivil; the Executive President of the Association of Power Generators of Chile, Claudio Seebach; former Head of the Climate Change Office of the Ministry of Environment, Andrea Rudnick; Titular Minister of the Environmental Tribunal of Santiago, Alejandro Ruiz; and representatives of the Imagen Chile Foundation, Mónica Retamal and Álvaro Fischer.
Chile is to host the UN Climate Change Summit COP 25 between the 2 and 13 of December. The meeting will bring together ministers and heads of state from around 200 countries to promote active policies to care for and protect the planet.
President Piñera highlighted the importance of this event, saying "we will have to make progress in getting countries to make more ambitious and more enforceable commitments, because the Paris Agreements are not enough to prevent the world from continuing on a path that is leading to disaster."
This year, the Government of Chile has proposed the following topics for discussion at the summit: the care of the oceans and Antarctica, the importance of electromobility and renewable energies, the enhancement of the circular economy, along with the protection of ecosystems, forests and biodiversity.