This twenty-third Climate Summit (COP23) has already ended, and it does so with the approval of a document that begins to specify the rules of the Paris Agreement against climate change. This Agreement has almost 200 countries that have reaffirmed their commitment in Bonn in the fight against climate change despite the departure of the United States.
This Agreement is of vital importance to stop climate change and now more than ever, since, after the departure of the United States, one of the most polluting countries in the world, a greater effort must be made not to achieve an increase of 2 ° C the average temperatures of the planet. What rules have been established in this Paris Agreement?
COP23 ends
The Prime Minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama, who held the presidency of COP23, considered that the text approved at the summit, called "The Bull Moment of Implementation" of the Paris Agreement, making a nod to the word "bull" with which Fijians greet each other, is "a step forward to advance in the implementation of the pact reached in 2015."
Although some negotiations have been reached and this Agreement is being shaped, there is still much work to do. The European Commissioner for Climate Action, Miguel Arias Canete, has recognized that an intense year of meetings for climate diplomacy awaits us. There are still many aspects to set and take into account for sustainable economic development in the fight against climate change.
Document characteristics
This document contains revisions to many of the national greenhouse gas reduction and the financing that the richest countries will allocate to those that are in development to be able to adapt to climate change.
The issue of financing, in particular, has delayed the adoption of an agreement until dawn, while developing countries required the rich to report two years in advance how much money they were going to contribute and in what timeframe, with the objective that they could know what funds they had.
As mentioned before, the United States has exited the Paris Agreement, although this exit It won't materialize until 2020. However, the announcement of the withdrawal of this country has generated a climate of general distrust in developing countries that have pressured the rest of the richest countries to remain committed to secure financing.
We recall that today an economic development is synonymous with polluting. That is, a country's GDP is closely related to greenhouse gas emissions, so developing countries, if they want to stop emitting gases, they will need financing in order to continue growing economically.
Talanoa financing and dialogue
Developing countries achieved the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund stay in the Paris Agreement. In addition, there is an obligation that indicates that the richest nations will have to present a transparent and detailed report of how much money they are going to contribute until 2020, which is when the Paris pact comes into operation, which for the first time has obligations for everyone.
In short, developing countries wanted to ensure that those most responsible for climate change fulfill their commitments in the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, until 2020, for them to start making their own from that date and through the Paris Agreement.
At this COP23, the so-called Talanoa Dialogue has been designed. This consists of accountability at the next summit in which countries will have to explain how they will increase their ambitions and their current emission reduction commitments to achieve the agreed target of a reduction in global temperatures.
The Talanoa Dialogue will not only include governments, civil society agents (companies, unions, environmentalists, scientists, etc.) will also be present, and rich countries will have to give an account of what they will do before 2020 to combat climate change.
Finally, it was recalled that the effects of climate change are not the same for everyone, but that no one escapes from them.