COP23 - Another cop-ot?

 Next week there will be another U.N. Climate Change Conference - COP23 in Bonn. The focus of the conference will still be on figuring out how to make the 2015 Paris agreement work in terms of its temperature, adaptation and finance goals. In Paris, countries pledged to keep the rise in average global temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. They also agreed to strive for a lower 1.5 degrees of warming, to try to stave off the worst effects of climate change. This year’s climate-related natural disasters — hurricanes, floods and wildfires in developed and developing countries alike — drives home the urgency.

The national pledges currently on the table by the signatory countries will only bring a third of the reduction in emissions required by 2030 to meet global climate targets, says a United Nations Environment Program report.

The biggest roadblock is not with national governments. Rather, the private sector and regional governments aren’t increasing their climate action at a rate that would help close this gap. Even full implementation of national reduction targets would still mean a temperature increase of 3 degrees by 2100. The reality could be even bleaker given this analysis doesn’t take into account the United States’ intention to pull out of the agreement.

Erik Solheim, head of the UNEP, said. “One year after the Paris Agreement entered into force, we still find ourselves in a situation where we are not doing nearly enough to save hundreds of millions of people from a miserable future.”