In this way, António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, justified yesterday at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 24) in Katowice the importance of a cleaner and greener energy system to successfully combat climate change.
The United Nations Secretary-General opened the COP 24 in Katowice with an emphatic message “climate change is the single most important issue we face. It affects all our plans for sustainable development and a safe, secure and prosperous world. So, it is hard to comprehend why we are collectively still moving too slowly – and even in the wrong direction”.
Therefore, he appealed to governments and investors in order to bet on the green economy, not the grey, “that means embracing carbon pricing, eliminating harmful fossil fuel subsidies and investing in clean technologies. It also means providing a fair transition for those workers in traditional sectors that face disruption, including through retraining and social safety nets.”
Scaling up the deployment of renewable energy is crucial to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals as United Nations announced early in the year.
The 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), two weeks of conference, should culminate with the adoption of a work program for the implementation of the agreement. This means that there is no time for endless negotiations, said Guterres. The UN Secretary General maintains that a good result in Katowice would boost confidence and show the engagement of the countries to face climate change.
COP24 is important because this year marks the deadline agreed by signatories 197 of the Paris Agreement to adopt a “work program for the implementation” of the commitments they made in 2015.
The UNFCCC is a “Rio Convention”, one of three adopted at the “Rio Earth Summit” in 1992. The UNFCCC entered into force on 21 March 1994. Today, it has near-universal membership. The countries that have ratified the Convention are called Parties to the Convention. Preventing “dangerous” human interference with the climate system is the ultimate aim of the UNFCCC.
The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the supreme body of the UNFCCC Convention. It consists of the representatives of the Parties to the Convention. It holds its sessions every year. The COP takes decisions which are necessary to ensure the effective implementation of the provisions of the Convention and regularly reviews the implementation of these provisions.