Climate summit.
Nations will meet in Germany to discuss implementing the Paris accords, but the role of the U.S. is uncertain. »
BERLIN» Governments, scientists, industry groups and environmental campaigners are meeting in Germany next week to discuss implementing a global agreement to curb climate change, despite uncertainty over how the United States will figure into the effort.
President Donald Trump announced earlier this year that the U.S. will pull out of the 2015 Paris climate accord unless his administration can secure a better deal.
Other countries have pledged to press on regardless at the Nov. 6-17 meeting in the western German city of Bonn. The 23rd Conference of the Parties, or COP, will be presided over by Fiji, one of the small island nations particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming.
Researchers say extreme weather like the events of recent months — including hurricanes in the Caribbean, heatwaves in Europe and flooding in south Asia — are going to become more frequent as a result of climate change. To prevent catastrophic consequences, they say countries must make concerted efforts to shift the global economy away from fossil fuels and to adjust to some inevitable impacts, such as rising sea levels.
“This COP is more important than most people realize,” Andrew Steer, head of the World Resources Institute, a Washingtonbased environmental think tank, said.
Steer said a growing number of commitments from governments, as well as from major companies and cities around the world, was “broadly encouraging.” He noted the falling cost of renewable energy — a key technology required to help power-hungry economies kick the carbon habit.
Most of the 195 countries coming to Bonn — where the U.N. climate agency is located — appear willing to continue hammering out the details needed to make the Paris 2015 accord work, German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said ahead of the two-week talks.
Negotiators will try to agree on ways to measure each country’s greenhouse gas emissions and to make sure everyone is playing by the same rules. Since the Paris agreement doesn’t foresee sanctions for countries that fail to meet their targets, peer pressure is the main mechanism for ensuring that governments abide by their commitments and continue to increase their efforts in future.
A key issue will be the transparency of emissions reports, said Nigel Purvis, a former U.S. State Department negotiator under the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies.
The United States used to be the major force pushing for more open reporting and that will suffer because of the Trump administration’s planned withdrawal from Paris, he said.
“Without U.S. leadership the deal is likely to take a little bit longer and may not be as strong,” said Purvis, president of the group Climate Advisers.
Negotiators have until the end of 2018 to come up with the final rule book; it would be subject to approval at the next climate summit in Katowice, Poland.