The Impact of climate change is visible but people are not much aware about the severity of climate change. The lethargic attitude of population and governments did not produce much result since Paris Climate Agreement was signed in 2015.
Bigger nation like US did not show much interest in the deal related to climate. There have been conflicts related to funding from developed nations to developing nations for adopting new technologies.
New guidelines, new strategies would impact the social structure of the countries as well. However, after so many efforts, eventually COP24 comes as a ray of hope.
COP 24, The UN climate change conference
The United Nations Climate Change Conference 2018 that took place
between 2 and 15 December 2018 in Katowice, Poland. Nations which participate
in the conference are called as Conference of Parties or COP. This was 24th
conference of the parties (COP24th) of Climate Change Convention. It
is also referred to as the Katowice Climate Change Conference or
Katowice Climate talks.
The most important outcome of COP24 was that countries agreed on
rules for putting the 2015 Paris Agreement in to practice. This included- how
governments would measure, report and verify their emission-cutting
efforts. It ensured all countries should hold proper standards.
Let’s understand first Paris agreement 2015
Paris agreement was to unite all nations in a single agreement on
tackling climate change for the first time in history. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997
set emission cutting targets for a handful of developed countries, but the US
pulled out and others failed to comply. However, the scientists point out the
Paris accord must be followed to protect the earth from the impact of climate
change.
UN’s report
After serious reports by United Nation in October 2018, a report showed
the need for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 50% by 2030. This is
crucial to cap global warming at 1.5C. The world would not be able to remain
the same or sustain in the same way if climate change is ignored further.
Rulebook of COP24
Clear guidelines
The adopted guidelines package is also called the “rulebook”.
These guidelines have been designed to encourage greater climate action. This
is going to be an ambitious tool for the benefit of the people and countries.
Detailed Transparency Framework
One of the key components of the Katowice package is a detailed
transparency framework, meant to promote trust among nations regarding
the fact that they are all doing their duty in addressing climate change. It
sets out how countries will provide information about their national action
plans, including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as
mitigation and adaption measures.
The Collective Efforts
An agreement was reached on how to uniformly count greenhouse gas
emission and if poorer countries feel they cannot meet the standards set, they
can explain why and present a plan to build up their capacity in that regard.
Financial support plan for developing countries
On the critical question of financing from developed
countries in support of climate action to developing countries, the document
sets a way to decide on new, more ambitious target from 2025 onwards, from the
current commitment to help the developing nation of 100$ billion per year as of
2020.
Other main achievement COP24
Many encouraging announcement were also made like the political negotiations
among member states on the Paris guidelines, sharing innovative ideas,
attending cultural events, and building partnership for cross-sectoral and
collaborative efforts. Germany and Norway pledged that they would double
their contributions to the green climate fund, to help developing countries to
act.
World Bank also announced to increase its commitment to
climate action after 2021 to 200$ billion.
Five priorities by United Nation
There are five priorities areas announced by UN that will be: ambition,
ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition.
1.
Ambition in mitigation.
2.
Ambition in adaption.
3.
Ambition in finance.
4.
Ambition in technical cooperation and capacity
building.
5.
Ambition in technological innovation.
Currently the plans that countries lodged as part of the Paris
agreement don’t get anywhere near that, described as “grossly insufficient”.
