Climate Change: COP24 Discusses Paris Agreement

Thousands of representatives from 200 countries will for 12 days during the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP24 holding in the Polish city of Katowice discuss the devastating impact of climate change. The BBC says the conference comes after the release of several reports painting a stark picture of the situation of planet earth. UN Environment last week published Emissions Gap Report for 2018, noting that total annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2017 hit a record high of 53.5
gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Over the weekend, the World Meteorological Organization, WMO, said the average global temperature for 2018 was set to be the fourth highest on record. “Every fraction of a degree of warming makes a difference to human health and access to food and fresh water, extinction of animals and plants, and to the survival of coral reefs and marine life,” said WMO Deputy Secretary General, Elena Manaenkova. The Paris Agreement reached at COP21 in 2015 is up for review in Katowice. It was in Paris, France that world leaders committed to make sure global warming stayed “well below” 2 degrees Celsius
above pre-industrial levels. They also agreed to pursue efforts to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to the United Nations, this year marks the deadline agreed by signatories of Paris Agreement to adopt a “work programme for the implementation” of the commitments made in 2015. Other decisions reached in Paris includ...