Iran, France Poised to Enhance Environmental Cooperation

France Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran Philippe Thiébaud met and held talks with Iranian Department of Environment (DoE) Chief Isa Kalangtari on Tue. and said that France is critical of US government for withdrawal from Paris Agreement. The two sides exchanged their views in the fields of overall situation of environment in Iran, Paris Agreement and ways to tackle climate changes.  For his part, Department of Environment (DoE) Chief Isa Kalantari added, “countering climate change needs the global determination.”

Turning to the Santiago Climate Change Conference entitled “COP25”, which is going to be held in Chile, he said, “Iran lost 20% of its precipitation over the past 10 years due to the same climate changes.” As a matter of fact, precipitation and rainfall has decreased and the weather got warmer, he said, adding, “under such circumstances, Iran has faced water shortage problem drastically.”
Given the above issue, Islamic Republic of Iran is among the first victims of climate change in the world, Kalantari continued.

Turning to the Paris Convention, he said, “in this Convention, we have complied with all our obligations for reducing carbon emissions by 4% before its final approval but unfortunately, it seems that European Union is more committed to sanctions than the United States, because, environment was not included in the US sanctions but European Union has also taken environmental facilities from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Iran has invested more than US$3 billion with regard to the environmental issues annually, he said, adding, “in addition, the country has made huge investment in relevant field especially in sanctions period.” In the end, the two sides placed their special emphasis on the need to follow up drastic measures to resolve national and international problems with regard to the environment. - Mehr