UN climate talks must deliver on expectations

Posted on November, 30 2018

GLAND, Switzerland (30 November 2018) - Government climate negotiators head to Katowice, Poland this week to join the 24th UN climate talks, hot on the heels of a number of reports just released which set the scene for catastrophic climate impacts without urgent, scaled up climate action.

Simply, the gap between current levels of climate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and what we still need to do is laid bare in the 2018 Emissions Gap Report, in the World Meteorological Organization’s provisional statement on the state of the climate 2018 report, and in the IPCC’s landmark special report on 1.5℃ of global warming.

“We are counting on good progress in Katowice,” said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, leader of WWF’s global climate and energy practice. “We have a roadmap for climate action in the Paris Agreement. Key outcomes from this meeting of UN climate negotiators will lay the foundations for continued multilateral progress in tackling climate change at the scale and speed necessary to match what science tells us is needed.”

The scale of the challenge - and the opportunity - that this meeting presents should help focus minds, says Pulgar-Vidal.

WWF believes there is a clear set of outcomes needed to ensure the continued momentum for climate action, which we call the Katowice Package. These include:

- Urgently scaled up climate action both before and after 2020 accompanied by financial and other support for developing countries;

- Finalise and adopt a comprehensive set of rules to guide the implementation of the Paris Agreement. These must enhance the transparency of all countries’ actions to address climate change, and lead to greater accountability and ambition of countries’ individual climate plans;

- A renewed recognition that the gap between what we are doing and what we need to do is insufficient to fully implement the Paris Agreement, and an indication of what is necessary, including better integration of nature-based solutions to climate change; and finally,

- A commitment from Parties to update and resubmit improved country climate plans (or nationally determined contributions or NDCs).

“We have to ensure that we don’t fall short of expectations for this round of negotiations,” says Pulgar-Vidal. The outcomes of COP24 must consolidate the momentum created in 2018, and lay the groundwork for a successful UN Secretary General’s Summit in 2019 and the enhanced climate commitments and actions the world needs for its survival.

“Without aggressive, ambitious climate action, it will become virtually impossible for the world to avoid overshooting the 1.5℃ of warming,” he said.

Notes to Editors:

See WWF’s COP24 Expectations Paper here
Visit WWF’s COP24 website here for daily updates, news, announcements.
Visit WWF’s pavilion at COP24 #pandahub. The full programme is here.
The 24th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 24) to the UNFCCC will take place from 2-14 December 2018, in Katowice, Poland.

For further information, contact:

Scott Edwards | WWF International | sedwards@wwfint.org | +44 7887 954116

COP24 takes place in Katowice, Poland this year.

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