Talks begin: ‘No climate Plan B’
Poland meeting a test of whether lofty goals can be backed with concrete measures
Negotiators from around the world have started two weeks of talks on curbing climate change, three years after sealing a landmark deal in Paris that set a goal of keeping global warming well below 2C.
Envoys from almost 200 nations gathered in Poland’s southern city of Katowice, a day earlier than originally planned because of the large number of issues that need to be resolved by December 14.
“We are here to enable the world to act together on climate change,” said Poland’s environmental envoy, Michal Kurtyka, who is presiding over the UN meeting, known as COP24.
With further meetings next year meant to build on what’s decided in Katowice, he urged all countries to “show creativity and flexibility”. He added: “There is no Plan B.”
Ministers and some heads of government plan to join the discussion today, when host Poland is expected to push for a declaration ensuring a “just transition” for fossil fuel industries that face cuts and closures amid efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The meeting in Katowice is regarded as a key test of countries’ willingness to back their lofty but distant goals with concrete measures, some of which are already drawing fierce protests. At the top of the agenda is the so-called Paris rulebook, which will determine how governments record and report their greenhouse emissions and efforts to cut them. Separately, negotiators will discuss ramping up countries’ national emissions targets after 2020, and financial support for poor nations that are struggling to adapt to climate change.
The meeting received a boost over the weekend when 19 major economies at the G20 summit affirmed their commitment to the 2015 Paris climate accord. The only holdout was the US, which reaffirmed under President Donald Trump that it is withdrawing from the climate pact.
“Despite geopolitical instability, the climate consensus is proving highly resilient,” said Christiana Figueres, a former head of the UN climate office. “It is sad that the federal administration of the US, a country that is increasingly feeling the full force of climate impacts, continues to refuse to listen to the objective voice of science when it comes to climate change.”
Trump shrugged off his Administration’s report outlining the severe threats of climate change. Trump has also presided over a transformation in the Republican Party — placing climate change scepticism squarely in the GOP’s ideological mainstream.
The last Republican president, George W. Bush, acknowledged that the Earth was warming and that “an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem”. The prevailing GOP view on the Midterm campaign trail this year and espoused by many members of Congress is built on the false premise that climate science is an open question.
Nearly two-thirds of Republicans believe the world’s climate is changing, according to a Monmouth University survey, a jump from 49 per cent three years ago. Among Democrats, 92 per cent say that climate change is occurring. Among independents, 78 per cent believe in it.
French President Emmanuel Macron asked for a review of protest security measures, a day after a Paris demonstration against increased taxes and living costs devolved into a riot.
Hours after he flew back to the French capital from the G20 summit in Argentina, Macron held an emergency meeting at the Elysee presidential palace while crews worked to remove charred cars, broken glass and graffiti from the Champs-Elysees Avenue and other top Paris sites.
Paris police said 133 people were injured, including 23 police officers, as crowds trashed the streets. Officers fired tear gas and used water cannon to tamp down the violence as protesters torched cars, smashed windows, looted stores and tagged the Arc de Triomphe with spray paint.
Paris police Prefect Michel Delpuech said some officers encountered protesters with hammers, gardening tools, bolts, aerosol cans and rocks in physical confrontations.
Some radical far-right and far-left activists were involved, as well as a “great number” of protesters wearing yellow jackets — an emblem of a grassroots citizens’ movement protesting against fuel taxes. Fires were started at six buildings and more than 130 makeshift barricades and 112 vehicles were torched, Delpuech said.
Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said 378 people remained in police custody, 33 of them minors.
Macron visited the Arc de Triomphe, which had damaged statues as well as graffiti. One slogan on the famed war memorial read: “Yellow jackets will triumph”. He then headed to a nearby avenue where activists battled police to meet firefighters, police officers and restaurant owners.
At the security meeting, the French leader asked his Interior Minister to consider making “adaptations” to security procedures to try to contain ongoing protests, Macron’s office said.
Macron also asked Prime Minister Edouard Philippe to meet the heads of France’s major political parties and representatives from the grassroots movement. Plans for an earlier meeting between Philippe and representatives of the movement collapsed last week after a request to broadcast the talks live was rejected.
It was the third weekend of clashes in Paris involving yellow-vest activists. The protests began on November 17 with motorists upset over a fuel tax hike, but have grown to encompass a range of demands and complaints that Macron’s Government does not care about the problems of ordinary people. Protests elsewhere were mostly peaceful.
“It’s difficult to reach the end of the month. People work and pay a lot of taxes and we are fed up,” said Rabah Mendez, a protester who marched peacefully in Paris.
Macron said he welcomed the views of protesters but vowed that those who participated in wreaking havoc would be held responsible for their behaviour. “[Violence] has nothing to do with the peaceful expression of a legitimate anger” and “no cause justifies” attacks on police or pillaging stores and burning buildings.