Poland: What is at stake at the UN climate change conference in Katowice

This summer was pretty good. Week of blue sky, for weeks not a drop of rain - especially younger people were happy in this country, perhaps the best summer of y

Poland: What is at stake at the UN climate change conference in Katowice

This summer was pretty good. Week of blue sky, for weeks not a drop of rain - especially younger people were happy in this country, perhaps the best summer of your life. Only three years since the beginning of weather records were ever hot, reported the world meteorological organisation recently.

But in the perception of many people this summer was a harbinger for what the term climate change is, in reality, could mean. Finally, global glacial melt or rising sea levels, remain for the most abstract of the headlines from the world of climate simulation, which are already fraught with uncertainty.

Clearly, every individual can contribute to stop climate change, by ensuring, for example, for lower CO2 emissions. However, against the Background of the political climate failure in many Nations, the demand for global measures, without a doubt, become greater.

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up to 14. December to meet government officials and climate scientists in Katowice to the global climate change conference, the COP ("Conference of the Parties"). You will find 24. Time, the first climate conference was in 1995 in Berlin on the stage. The pressure at the negotiating tables is therefore expected to be large, if the view of world public attention on Poland.

But what the results are to be expected, what is being negotiated and debated? The COP24 Overview:

What is Poland?

The situation is explosive. Because there is always more doubt, whether the climate agreement of Paris can be observed from the year of 2015 again and again and last. The Treaty to limit global warming to as 1.5 degrees. But in October, a special report of the United Nations had warned the world of intergovernmental panel on climate change IPCC is a lack of measures of the involved contract partners, and scenarios for a much higher global temperature increase is calculated. Accordingly, a would continue the current measures and plans will lead to a global warming of about three degrees by the year 2100. It needs to be done urgently, say climate researchers.

But in Katowice it is not primarily a matter of the national climate protection targets is to raise binding.

the conference center in Katowice

Because on the Agenda is the formulation of a framework for the Treaty of Paris. The goal is to adopt at the end of the meeting, the so-called Rulebook. In this type of instruction for Paris, it is not only legal, but also technical Details. It will be about the appropriate methods for the measurement of the CO2 emissions of a Nation are discussed. Or on the question of whether and for whom such information must be transparent. In addition, the individual climate protection measures in the Contracting countries shall be made through the Rulebook also comparable.

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What results can be expected?

According to experts, a success of the summit is not safe. The transparency of dispute threatens. Also on the Review of the objectives of the Treaty debates Savoybetting should be conducted. Because a state is lagging behind in its Commitments, to engage a climate Committee. How far his powers can go, is also negotiated in Poland. "Each state needs the assurance that not only he himself, but also his competitors ambitious climate protection," says environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) in relation to the summit.

What is the Talanoa dialogue?

He goes back to the Fiji Islands, you have the interview format in the past year, as a legal open Forum for climate protection ideas. In this Dialog, there could be at least some advances, hope the experts - for example, in the area of the so-called NDCs. In the case of these Nationally Determined Contributions as it is the individual contributions of the Contracting States and communities of States like the EU. So far, the parties to the contract of Paris to determine independently what measures the agreement of Paris want to implement.

But so far, the NDCs are not sufficient to reach the set goal. Observers hope, therefore, that individual countries are making under the pressure of the last of the alarming results of alone other Commitments and advances.

UN climate change conference in Katowice /iStockphoto All articles on the topic of MIRROR ONLINE

Who participates in the world climate conference?

At the negotiating tables in Poland, diplomats, and experts from around 200 countries. The delegations are headed by the Ministers of the Environment. But the horse-riding detail of the questions to the best of the discussions, experienced experts. For Germany, the decisive Karsten Sach, he is in the Federal Ministry for the environment head of Department for climate protection policy, as well as long-standing German chief negotiator at the climate conferences.

in Addition, numerous smaller Nations, including island States such as Fiji, which are directly affected by the rise in sea level. The conference will therefore also be a financial compensation for the developing countries by the richer industrial Nations.

Why is the COP in Katowice?

the orientation of the annual climate conferences can make an effort, the participating Nations - in the last year of the COP in Bonn, was a guest. This was a compromise to the Paris agreement has been reached - in addition, other Nations have announced a Coal phase-out.

The Region around Katowice is dominated by the coal mining, the conference in Poland will take place for the main part in a remodeled mine. This is not a coincidence. Because one of the concerns of the host country, not just as a model for climate protection, the nation, the so-called just transition. Under this term, the participating countries discuss how a Transition from the previous to climate-friendly economic systems could be created.

Michal Kurtyka, President of the climate conference, it is important that regions such as Katowice, which are economical from the coal-dependent, suffer by the change, there is no serious disadvantages - for example, by rising unemployment. Such measures should not conflict with the objectives of the Treaty of Paris, believe, Poland, which had already hosted the Climate conference 2008 in poznań and in Warsaw in 2013. "But without Katowice, there is no Paris," says Kurtyka.

however, it is Unclear where the climate negotiations in the coming year will be held. Brazil has just elected the as a climate protection opponent well-known populists Jair Bolsonaro for President, refused only role last week on the host.

with Material from AFP

Date Of Update: 03 December 2018, 20:00
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