Polish negotiators have finally agreed on a series of measures that will implement the Paris climate pact by 2020. In the absence of an agreement, the discussions were instead postponed to next year`s COP25 in Chile. The COP24 decision on Article 6 is as follows: “The draft decision-making texts on these issues in the President`s proposal have been considered, but… The parties have not reached a consensus on this issue. The Conference of the Parties (COP) 24 will be held from 2 to 14 December in Katowice, Poland, and the stakes are high. The 2015 UNFCCC agreement set targets to reduce CO2 emissions and help countries adapt to the negative effects of global climate change. At the meeting in Poland, the parties must agree on the “regulatory framework” of the agreement, i.e. on how to implement it. But water is largely absent from the agreement. However, many of the parties that ratified the Paris Agreement have made water a central element of their national contributions (NDCs).
At present, the plans presented by countries under the Paris Agreement are not close to what a delegate from a climate-vulnerable country describes as “grossly inadequate”. Carbon Brief followed the negotiating texts throughout the session in an open access table. This records the number of pages of text in each iteration, the number of hooks – which indicate areas of disagreement – and the number of different “options” that are still on the table. The Katowice agreement aims to meet the Paris targets of limiting global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius. Laurence Tubiana, a major architect of the Paris Agreement and now with the European Climate Foundation, said the agreement was a big boost for the Paris Pact. The Paris agreement stipulates that such trade should be “consistent with the guidelines,” but does not rule it out if there are no guidelines, Keohane argues. He adds that this was deliberately formulated so that voluntary market mechanisms against attempts to sabotage a rules agreement would make voluntary market mechanisms “safe for Brazil” voluntary “Brazilian” market mechanisms. It was also agreed that the commitments should cover a “common timetable” from 2031, the number of years to be agreed at a later date.