COP24 - the 24th Conference of the Parties is being held from 3-14 December in Katowice, Poland, and is being touted as "Paris 2.0", in reference to the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement signed by 195 countries at COP21 in Paris and committing the world to keeping global temperature rise to 2.0°C above pre-industrial levels, and surprisingly at the time, to pursue limiting that rise to just 1.5°C. The Paris Agreement was signed with a degree of jubilation rarely seen at diplomatic events.

Sobering opening remarks

Fast forward three years from COP21, and the world is a different place from 2015, with different global leadership characterised by growing nationalism and anti-globalisation. The United States famously withdrew from the Paris Agreement (I won't go into that here), and a number of other countries with "Insert country name First" leadership are threatening to follow suit.

The United Nations and the people of the world have something else to say than "Me First".

Thoughts from the head of the United Nations

Here are a few excerpts from the opening remarks of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres:

We are in deep trouble with climate change. Climate change is running faster than we are and we must catch up sooner rather than later before it is too late. For many, people, regions even countries this is already a matter of life and death. This meeting is the most important gathering on climate change since the Paris Agreement was signed.

It is hard to overstate the urgency of our situation. Even as we witness devastating climate impacts causing havoc across the world, we are still not doing enough, nor moving fast enough, to prevent irreversible and catastrophic climate disruption. Nor are we doing enough to capitalize on the enormous social, economic and environmental opportunities of climate action.

And so, I want to deliver four simple messages.

First: science demands a significantly more ambitious response.

Second: the Paris Agreement provides the framework for action, so we must operationalize it.

Third: we have a collective responsibility to invest in averting global climate chaos, to consolidate the financial commitments made in Paris and to assist the most vulnerable communities and nations.

Fourth: climate action offers a compelling path to transform our world for the better.

And from possibly the most beloved naturalist in the world, Sir David Attenborough

Many of us have known Sir David Attenborough, now a sprightly 92 years old, as one of the most intrepid naturalists in the world, one who could take us to the jungles of Borneo, the glaciers of Norway or the savannahs of Africa and teach us something profound about the world around us that without him we would likely never have known. So for him to say this in his keynote speech to COP24....

"If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon."

“Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years. Climate change.”

“The world’s people have spoken."

“Their message is clear. Time is running out. They want you, the decision-makers, to act now."

How has the Earth warmed over the last century and a half?

Okay, let's dive into the question of just how bad it is. And I won't touch on consequences in this post because that's a whole other set of depressing projections. Let's just look at the facts first. I've gone some way to finding good visualisations which make this complex, systemic topic more approachable.

An excellent animation

Folks, this is one of the best (I won't say coolest, because it's getting warmer) animations I've seen of warming by country. Apologies for including it as a link - I haven't been able to figure out how to embed the video. Trust me - it's worth the 36 seconds out of your life to watch this visualisation of data from 1880 to 2017. The creator calls this animation a "switchboard", which is a fair way to describe it for those who remember what switchboards looked like.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/local/weather/temperature-anomalies-from-the-past-137-years/2018/08/28/ebe115d6-aad4-11e8-9a7d-cd30504ff902_video.html

Video source

One of the less confusing graphs

This static figure below is just as alarming - it shows that our last two decades have been the hottest in human history since the end of the Industrial Revolution, which was characterised by the use of new energy sources such as coal, the steam engine, petroleum and the internal combustion engine, as well as other changes which set in motion the release of far more greenhouse gases into our planet's atmosphere than our climatic systems can cope with.

Change in annual global temperatures from 1850-2017Image source

Sure, the Earth has warmed (and cooled) before. But historically, temperature changes of a few degrees happened over thousands of years, not in less than a decade.

And what are the chances we can do something to arrest climate change?

Here's about the most summary view we can have of our options and their probable consequences in terms of temperature rise.

Image source - Climate Action Tracker, updated November 2017

Do I need to say it? If we don't act, our world will change catastrophically (I said I wasn't going to touch on consequences; if you've been following this even peripherally, you know that a 4.5 degree rise will have devastating effects on humanity - especially those who live in coastal areas). Even if we act, it's still not going to be enough. We'll have to do more as a species.

What's the Presidency of COP24 focusing on?

They have selected three priority areas, and I have to say, perhaps something is being lost in translation between the organisers and my little brain. We can see clearly above that urgent, global political action is needed. They say the main objective of the Polish Presidency at COP24 is to "adopt a decision ensuring full implementation of the Paris Agreement".

The key messages of the Polish Presidency are:

• "technology - to show that there are climate-friendly modern solutions, such as electromobility allowing for sustainable urban development, clean air and an opportunity for modern jobs,

• human - emphasizing the need to lead change together with people through the solidarity and fair transformation of regions and industrial sectors,

• nature - including multifunctional and sustainable forest management as part of climate neutrality and the role of forests as greenhouse gas sinks, and support for a synergic view of the three UN key conventions: on climate, on biodiversity and on desertification."

Is it just me, or is there a disconnect between these focus areas and getting the Paris Agreement to implementation? How dare I doubt the power of diplomacy, you ask? Let's watch carefully what happens at COP24 over the next 10 days and see what the Parties achieve.

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