Page 50 - bne_Magazine_February_2019

50 I Central Europe bne February 2019
Anti-science collusion by oil producers blocks progress at UN climate talks in Poland Wojciech Kosc in Katowice Poland
The lack of consensus highlighted just how divided the world is over what scientists agree is the single most important issue of our time.
“If we don’t take action the collapse
of our civilisation and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon,” British naturalist and broad- caster Sir David Attenborough told the Katowice summit.
The drama concerned just one word. The US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait objected to the “welcoming” of
a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which said earlier this year that radical and unprec- edented action is needed to limit global warming.
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The opposing countries said they could merely “note” the report, which set off frantic informal talks that failed to reach consensus, however.
It is now up to politicians to try and take the issue further, as the Katowice sum-
Haggling over the IPCC report is but one of the issues that still divide COP24.
The summit’s top task is to come up with rules for implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement, in which the world’s nations agreed to try and limit global tempera-
“If we don’t take action the collapse of our civilisation and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon”
mit, known as COP24, is now entering what likely seems a tense second week following technical work of countries’ negotiators in the past seven days.
ture rise to below 2 degrees Celsius, rela- tive to the pre-industrial era, by 2100.
COP24 is to come up with a rulebook
The Katowice summit.