COP24 Wrap Up

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Post by: Anna McGinn


COP24 concluded on December 15, 2018 with agreement on a rulebook that the parties will follow in order to implement the Paris Agreement. The UMaine delegation had the opportunity to observe these tough negotiations which provided substantial insight into the challenges negotiators face in bringing all country positions together to the so-called landing zones of agreement.

If you are interested in exploring analysis on the outcome of COP24, here are a couple articles I recommend:

COP24 concludes with a leap by the COP24 presidency.
Photo credit: IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth
IISD Reporting Services provides detailed reporting on negotiations throughout all environmentally-related international negotiating sessions. Here is their comprehensive summary of COP24 which includes background on the COPs leading up to Katowice and a breakdown of each of the final decisions coming out of COP24. This is a technical and excellent source to understand these negotiating outcomes.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has a shorter blog post on COP24 outcomes which provides an overview of the negotiation conclusions. Their analysis suggests that “after two bruising weeks of negotiations, the world made just enough progress to set the Paris Agreement in motion.”

Carbon Brief has a great and accessible analysis of COP24 outcomes. The discussion is broken down by thematic area, so you can search through the content for your areas of interest. For negotiating wonks, Carbon Brief also has some fun data including how many brackets were in each iteration of each text over the course of the two-week meeting.

The Climate Action Network, which is an umbrella organization for many of the environmental NGOs at the COP, put out this statement which highlights that, in their analysis, COP24 did not address the urgency of the climate change challenge. 

The US State Department released an official statement on the conclusion of COP24. It shows you were they stand. As mentioned in previous posts, the US federal delegation was not the only US show in town. The US We Are Still In coalition also had a strong presence as shown by their events held over the course of COP24. 

Thanks so much for following along during our time in Poland! See you next year at COP25 in Chile!

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