COP24: Katowice Climate Conference

I first started this blog in 2010 because I was very disappointed in the outcome of the Copenhagen Climate Conference (COP15).

At the time, many millions of people around the world expected politicians to finally sign an agreement to deal with climate change but, instead, we got a meaningless 'accord'.

At a stroke, much of the public who were clamouring for a deal, just gave up on climate change as a lost cause. So it wasn't until 2015 that a final deal was struck at the Paris conference (COP21) in 2015.

It was an historic moment, but it should have happened many years earlier. The science, after all, has been pretty clear on the issue for decades.

So what?

Well, anyone who has been following what the climate change experts have been saying for years is that: The later we start to deal with climate change, the harder the effects of dealing with it will be on society and the more expensive measures they bring in will be.

So the politicians (and climate deniers, who've deliberately muddied the waters), have let us all down - Had we started dealing with climate change when it first became a clear threat, we'd have barely noticed the measures our governments would have needed to implement.

After decades of dithering, we're definitely going to notice them now.

But even that will be nothing compared to what we'd face if we do nothing and let the climate warm by more than 2 degrees C.

Anyway, back to COP24 (Katowice December 2018). In 2015, the nations of the world agreed to keep warming to less than 2 degrees. Since then they've submitted their plans to help do that and been trying to agree rules on how to make sure these plans happen.

However, those plans, combined, would only keep warming down to around 3C. Not enough.

So the hopes from Katowice were that a) The above rules would be agreed; and b) Nations would up their ambition.

It looks like it succeeded with a) but utterly failed with b). See here for a summary.

Not only that but the climate change plans, weak as they are, don't come into effect until 2020.

Yet more delay. Yet more pain to be suffered by us when they finally get going.