The 24th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) in Katowice has ended with the adoption of a new rulebook to foster the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change across the world. The 2015 Paris Agreement sets out a global action plan to put the implied countries on track to limit global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and cap the temperature rise to 1.5°C. It entered into force in November 2016 and as of 2018, 195 UNFCCC parties have signed it and 184 have ratified it.
The COP24 key outcomes entails several key areas such as transparency, finance, climate mitigation and climate adaptation. It provides a new system for the countries involved to monitor and track progress in climate action, enabling them to improve their practices over time and communicate the progress made. All the Parties now have a registry to communicate their respective actions in terms of adaptation to the impacts of climate change. In addition, the Katowice Climate Package also includes guidelines that relate to the process for establishing new targets on finance from 2025 onwards to follow-on from the current target of mobilizing US$100bn/year from 2020 to support developing countries, how to conduct the Global Stocktake of the effectiveness of climate action in 2023 and how to assess progress on the development and transfer of technology.
The European Union (EU) played a key rule in working towards the development of this rulebook. It will adopt a new climate long-term strategy and submit it to the UNFCCC by 2020. It remains committed to the global target of mobilising US$100bn/year (€88bn/year) by 2020 and through to 2025 to finance climate action in developing countries. In 2017, the EU (comprising the European Investment Bank and the member states) provided €20.4bn in climate finance, which is about 50% more than in 2012.
However, parties decided to postpone decisions on committing to more ambitious action to cap the increase in temperatures to 1.5°C - the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait blocked an endorsement of the IPCC report saying that emissions were off track and heading towards 3°C and that CO2 emissions would have to be cut by 45% by 2030 to reach 1.5°C - and on regulating the market for international CO2 emissions trading.
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