The positive sides of COP24
Mattias Goldmann who made our Top 11 list during the first week of COP24, is back with another top list. Mr. Goldmann thinks there are many more positive than negative results as a result of COP24. Therefore he made this top 5 list of how COP24 managed to implement the Paris Agreement.
Those of you following the drama of COP24 that peaked in the second half of its second week can probably agree on the was some kund of miracle that the delegates managed to get an agreement. The legacy of COP24 will surely be that 196 countries, and the European Union, actually agreed on the “rulebook” to implementthe Paris climate agreement.
Perhaps it’s stretching it a bit to say that COP24 was only a success. Actually, as we know, the proof is in the pudding. Put bluntly only when global emissions decline instead of rising has there been any real success.
The results of climate action and negotiations in the years to come are probably the most crucial humanity has ever faced. — Mårten Thorslund, WeDontHaveTime.org
The Economist seems to agree with Mr Goldmann while The Guardian has a somewhat different view of the outcome and what took it so long to reach an agreement and the Carbon Brief has the story in more detail here.
Perhaps we could call his list The Fab Five List from COP24. Mattias Goldmann in five tweets sum-up the last plenary sessions of hard talk and smooth negotiations of the final days of the COP24.
Now we look forward to a first-ever over delivery and real action in terms of actually reaching and surpassing (overperforming) the NDCs as well as well over the promised funding of the Green Climate Fund.
Mattias Goldmann’s Fab Five List from the COP24
- Big Finance stepped up
2. Just transition is understood
3. Targets will be raised
4. IPCC was welcomed (by most)
5. COP25 will be better (Chile and Costa Rica to the rescue)
Next steps of COP
The next COP, the COP25 will be held in Chile with a pre-COP in Costa Rica in November of 2019. In the absence of climate leadership from the coming administration in Brazil, originally planned to be hosting COP25, also known as the Bolsonaro climate farce, the nearby countries Chile and Costa Rica are pushing a very different agenda. They have stepped up to the challenge and filled the void after the Brazilan exit on the continent.
Perhaps we can agree on naming a few other nations as some of the most reluctant to climate action under current administrations an in COP24:
Brazil, USA, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia and Australia. To name a few.
We can choose to look at them as dangerous, counter-productive, anti-role models of climate action. Or we can consider them road bumps on the route to a low-carbon lifestyle that we all head for. After a road bump, there is an acceleration of pace, which is what Costa Rica and Chile are two excellent examples of.
No-one likes to be left alone, and it’s soon getting awfully empty and unhealthy to be stuck on the low achievers side of the carbon-fence. — Mårten Thorslund, WeDontHaveTime.org
About the author and travelling to COP214
Goldmann is a Swedish expert on the Pris climate agreements and the COP negotiation. He is also the CEO of the Swedish thinktank Fores and was our man in Katowice in the second week of COP24 when I, Mårten Thorslund returned to Sweden.
Both Mattias and I travelled by train to make the smallest carbon footprint possible and I personally co-shared an apartment instead of staying at a hotel, which also minimised my carbon footprint.
The lowest common denominator among delegates and observers at the COPs is to travel to and from the COP by air. This means that even among those climate leaders who could take the train a couple of hundreds of kilometres to “save the climate”, nearly all of them went by air.
This article compares how much smaller the carbon footprint is on railway from aviation.
The tweets are written by Mattias Goldmann, CEO of the Swedish thinktank Fores. Follow Mattias on Twitter @MattiasGoldmann.
Website: http://fores.se/about-fores/
Written by Mårten Thorslund of WeDontHaveTime.org
About We Don’t Have Time
We Don’t Have Time are currently building the world’s largest social network for climate action. Together we can solve the climate crisis.
But we are running out of time.
Website: www.wedonthavetime.org
