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Kaljulaid: Estonia should stop emitting CO2 by 2030

President Kersti Kaljulaid riding a bike in Narva, August 2018.
President Kersti Kaljulaid riding a bike in Narva, August 2018. Source: Sergei Stepanov/ERR

Estonia should strive toward a situation in which by 2030, transportation is the only pollutant emitting carbon dioxide, President Kersti Kaljulaid said on Wednesday, noting that Estonia should heed the voices of small island nations in the Pacific threatened by climate change.

"I believe we should start discussing that, excepting transportation, Estonia, too, should be free of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030," Kaljulaid, who is currently on a working visit to the Pacific Islands, told BNS on Wednesday. "The knowledge and the technology are good enough for that today — that is what our green energy specialists say. I think it is worthy of a discussion."

Kaljulaid, who visited Vanuatu on Monday and Tuesday, noted that climate change poses a threat to security which endangers entire nations.

"We understand well that climate change is the primary security concern of the states of Oceania, which in the longer perspective endangers entire states and nations," the Estonian president said when meeting Vanuatuan Prime Minister Charlot Salwai Tabimasmas on Tuesday.

"Small states — they are all sensitive to the climate, but all they can do is state in a clear voice that climate change is indeed taking place and demand in an increasingly discernible manner that something be done," she said during her visit to Fiji on Wednesday. 

"Perhaps we, too, could heed the voice of these small island states," she added.

During her visit to Fiji, Kaljulaid is scheduled to meet with President Jioji Konousi Konrote and Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama.

The Estonian president began her Pacific tour on Saturday, visiting Australia and Vanuatu. Following her visit to Fiji, she is to head to New Zealand and then the United States, where she is scheduled to meet with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on 2 November.

Editor: Aili Vahtla

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