Iceland’s Ambitious Climate Goal: Wants to Exceed Paris Agreement

When Iceland’s new Prime Minister, Katrín Jakobsdottír, met with France’s President Emmanuel Macron in France last week, she announced that the politicians on Iceland have set clear and ambitious climate goals.

Iceland’s ambition is to exceed the climate goals of the Paris Agreement. The news emerged during last week’s One Planet climate summit in the French capital.

A total of 200 countries signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, which aims to halt global warming at 2 or rather 1.5 degrees Celsius.

This goal requires a radical change of the world’s energy consumption, and president Donald Trump has later announced that he wants to withdraw the USA from the agreement.

More than fifty heads of state participated at last week’s climate summit, and the decision from the Icelandic government was warmly received in France, according to Iceland Monitor. 

- I introduced Iceland’s goal of a carbon-free Iceland by 2040 and how we plan to achieve this goal, and it was warmly received. Being a small nation with renewable energy we have great opportunities to move on. Other nations set such goals, however, our time frame is ambitious and we will be five years ahead of our neighbors in the Nordic countries, Jakobsdóttir says.

The 41-year old was appointed prime minister of Iceland at the beginning of this month, and she is the tenth prime minister in ten years.

Jakobsdóttir has earlier led the Icelandic department of Nordic cooperation, and she has also been Minister of Education, Research and Culture.