Cloudy pact at climate talks
FRACTIOUS climate change talks in Poland showed the limits of international action to limit global warming in a polarised world, putting the onus on individual governments, cities and communities to stop temperatures rising.
Nearly 200 countries at the UN talks in Katowice – in the coal mining region of Silesia – saved the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement from disintegration on Saturday by agreeing to a package of guidelines for its implementation.
But it deferred rules on carbon credits – a spur to business – and lacked any firm commitment to strengthen countries’ emissions cut targets by 2020, when the agreement comes into force.
As such, it left the parties a long way from the Paris deal’s goal of keeping global warming below 2°C, let alone the cap of 1.5°C needed to avert more extreme weather, rising sea levels and the loss of plant and animal species.
The world is heading for a 3-5°C rise in temperatures this century, the UN World Meteorological Organisation has said.
The Paris Agreement is based on individual commitments and expectations for the Polish talks to produce much more than rules for how those would be measured – the unity built in Paris had been shattered by a wave of governments placing national agendas before collective action.
Only a handful of country leaders were present in Katowice and the UN secretary-general had to fly back to the meeting to urge progress.
“Political will is missing,” said Alden Meyer, director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit science advocacy group.
“But it provides the hook for governments, cities, businesses, civil society, etc, to do the work to get to the Paris Agreement goals.”
Conference president Michal Kurtyka wrote on Twitter: “Mission accomplished.
“Our children will look back at our legacy and recognise that we took the right decisions at important junctures like the one we face today.”
The US, as well as oil producers Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait, refused to “welcome” the report. Of the Chinese negotiators, Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, said: “I think they have come a long way in recognising they need to provide confidence.”
Describing Washington as “out of touch”, Morgan noted the rules agreed in Poland nevertheless bound all countries, including the US, until its planned withdrawal in 2020.