For the past 23 years, representatives from participating countries across the globe have met under the United Nations Convention on Climate Change to discuss measures aimed at halting dangerous global warming.
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This year, the conference was held in Bonn, Germany from November 6 to 13. Known as ‘COP23’, it is especially significant, because it is through the Bonn conference that the rules are negotiated to put the Paris Agreement of 2015 into practice.
The most important conference focus was the development of the “Paris Rulebook”, which includes the technical rules and processes needed to fulfil the aims of the Paris Agreement.
The responsibilities of those involved in the development of the rulebook include setting the framework for the participating countries' pledges, reporting of adaptation efforts, setting the guidelines for the reporting of action at a global stocktake in 2023, and how to monitor compliance.
Although America has been withdrawn from the Paris Agreement by President Donald Trump, there was present at the conference an alternative ‘we are still in’ delegation, consisting of a coalition of states, cities and businesses headed by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and California Governor Garry Brown.
The group claimed to represent half of the US economy and was present at the conference to send a strong message that many US citizens are supportive of the Paris Agreement.
A major event at the COP was the ‘powering past coal alliance’ led by the UK and Canada. More than 20 countries have joined the alliance so far, including Denmark, Finland, Italy, New Zealand, Ethiopia, the Marshall Islands and the US states of Washington and Oregon.
The aim of the group is to phase out the use of coal by the year 2050, in accordance with research which states that this is necessary if we are to restrict global warming to less than two degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Countries who are currently not signatories are Australia, India, China, Germany, Poland, and the US.
Other major achievements of the conference have been the acknowledgement of the role of women in climate action, and the contribution that the ancient wisdom of first nation peoples throughout the world can make in climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Although progress has been made in Bonn, we still have a long way to go if we are to be successful in dealing with dangerous climate change.
Our global efforts to date indicate that our current climate trajectory places us in danger of exceeding the two degree danger zone. Australia lags behind most of the world, being placed 57th out of 60 countries on the Climate Change Performance Index.
