Make a list of everything that happened in international politics or made the world section of the news in the last two weeks.
Now look over it. Was Poland there? Katowice? Clean coal? What about even just the word climate? Don’t be surprised if two, or even if only one of them made it on your list.
During a period of time where the United Kingdom adopted more than three different stances on their exit from the European Union, sometimes simultaneously; where Australia is, or going to, maybe, probably still is, or perhaps not move their Israeli embassy to Jerusalem; and where Robert Mueller found more than enough thread connecting Donald Trump to Russia to knit a warm sweater for the coming boreal winter; with all that it would be a surprise if just another climate conference made the headlines.
So here is everything that happened in Katowice, Poland at the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Katowice, a city in the south-east of Poland, is home to Europe’s largest coal producer and half the coal industry’s jobs in the country can be found in greater Katowice, thus, it’s an interesting city to be hosting a climate change conference.
Touted as the most important climate change conference since COP21 in Paris three years ago, COP24 establishes a ‘rulebook’, consisting of guidelines to ensure signatory states achieve the promises they agreed on at Paris.
COP24 was also subject to the notion of clean coal being essential to the future energy mix of the world. A message implied by the host, Poland, as a coal miners brass band welcomed foreign dignitaries and an idea actively pushed by the United States and Australia. The U.S. Government hosted an event earlier last week designed to ‘showcase ways to use fossil fuels as cleanly and efficiently as possible, as well as the use of emission-free nuclear energy’. The Australian Government was the only other state represented and espoused its technology-neutral approach to emissions reduction.
These developments at Katowice only lend credence to the portrayal of Australia and the United States as denialists of the urgency society faces to act in a changing climate and environment.
Small island states once again pleaded to the developed and industrial states, and the large polluters, to understand that anything more than a 1.5ºC target poses an existential crisis for their nations. Among these states were our own Pacific neighbours, states like the Marshall Islands whose president, Hilda Heine, asserted that her country faces ‘extinction’ without adequate global emissions reduction.
The conference follows a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which suggested that the current targets and ambitions set out in the Paris Accord are not enough to limit the globe to an increase of 1.5ºC above pre-industrial temperatures—the ideal target. Beyond 1.5ºC, small island states face a future where they do not exist as countries, where coastal cities and population hubs start sinking as coastlines recede inland, and where projecting natural disasters becomes more difficult—the only thing we know is that they’ll be more frequent and more intense. The report found that the world is now on track to reach 3ºC this century.
The report by the IPCC was tabled at COP24, but four nations failed to support it. The landmark report, projecting a bleak yet somewhat hopeful future of human society, was thus not adopted in its entirety by the COP.
One, therefore, also thinks: is what the global community of nations doing enough to ensure that the projected damaged caused by climate change does not occur? When you look at the complexity of the climate and environment it is clear that structural and systemic changes are necessary, from the food we eat, the mode of transport we use, the way our houses are built; to the resources we use in our public infrastructure programs, where we source our energy from and how we produce everyday goods, such as clothes and electronics.
The IPCC supports this notion, stating that ‘rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure, and industrial systems’ are the only option to remaining below the 1.5ºC limit. They suggest that the scale of the transition required would be ‘unprecedented’ in human history, 80% of our energy would need to be from renewables, and our global society must be producing net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Three years after COP21 in Paris, where there was a monumental agreement between states on the importance of global mitigation efforts, and two years after the global adoption of the Paris Climate Accord, a common set of rules were finally adopted on Sunday. The importance of this result is that both developed and developing states should now be held to the same standard, and a system of transparency and accountability would be implemented.
Progress made in the last two weeks lay the foundation for action on climate change, yet activists around the world and the most vulnerable nations would disagree that any substantial advances were made. The Maldives delegation, another small island state at risk of sinking under rising seas, wondered what the point of having annual negotiations was if ‘they don’t lead to progress or solutions’ in mitigating or eliminating the repercussions of climate change.
Although agreed, the goals to adopt renewables and cut greenhouse emissions remain inadequate. While COP24 takes another step in the right direction following COP21, it is not the leap that we so desperately need.
For now though, we can make individual changes in our lives, making more sustainable and environmentally-conscious decisions; pushing our governments to be bolder, more courageous and ambitious; and wait for COP25 in Chile next year.
