Environmental groups criticise climate deal reached at summit
● Governments warned that UN agreement does not go far enough
Environmental groups have urged caution after diplomats from around the world agreed a major climate deal.
The United Nations agreement, which was signed up to by almost 200 countries on Saturday after marathon talks, known as COP24, was hailed as “positive for the world” by Michal Kurtyka, a Polish official who chaired the summit in Katowice.
“Our children [will] look back at our legacy and recognise that we took the right decisions at important junctures like the one we are facing today,” he said.
But the deal received a lukewarm reception from some environmental groups and politicians.
The talks were intended to provide guidelines for countries on how to transparently report their greenhouse gas emissions and their efforts to reduce them.
The meeting postponed decision son pledging more ambitious action to fight global warming and on regulating the market for international carbon emissions trading.
Scientists say emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide need to drop sharply by 2030 to prevent potentially catastrophic global warming.
Greenpeace executive director Jennifer Morgan said more ambitious targets should have been set. She said: “A year of climate disasters and a dire warning from the world’s top scientists should have led to so much more.
“Instead governments let people down again as they ignored the science and the plight of the vulnerable.
“Recognising the urgency of raised ambition and adopting a set of rules for climate action is not nearly enough when whole nations face extinction.”
Environmental campaign groups in America were disappointed. “Overall the US role here has been somewhat schizophrenic – pushing coal and dissing science on the one hand, but also working hard in the room for strong transparency rules,” said Elliot Diringer of the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions.
When it came to closing potential loopholes that could allow countries to dodge their commitments to cut emissions, “the US pushed harder than nearly anyone else for transparency rules that put all countries under the same system, and it’s largely succeeded,” he added.
“Transparency is vital to US interests,” said Nathaniel Keohane, a climate policy specialist at the Environmental Defence Fund. He noted that the breakthrough in the 2015 Paris talks happened only after the US and China agreed on a common framework for transparency.
However, the agreement was hailed as “progress” by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Manuel Pulgar-vidal, leader of its climate and energy practice, said there was still a “fundamental lack of understand- ing by some countries of our current crisis”.
He said: “Luckily the Paris agreement is proving to be resilient to the storms of global geopolitics. Now we need all countries to commit to raising climate ambition before 2020, because everyone’s future is at stake.”
Former Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, who attended the summit, said she welcomed “the framework which sets out a road map to nationally determined contributions”.
But she added: “The decision reached tonight in Katowice is far from good enough.”
People affected by climate change must have a greater role in future negotiations, she said.
The announcement was praised by UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, who said: “Katowice has shown once more the resilience of the Paris agreement – our solid road map for climate action.
“It is our duty to reach for more and I count on all of you to raise ambitions so that we can beat back climate change.”