Will countries agree that Climate Change must be addressed NOW?

Bickering, walkouts and deadlocks marked the two-week-long United Nations climate summit in Warsaw, Poland — also known as the Conference of the Parties 19 or COP19 — which ended Nov. 23. UN climate summit leaders declared the conference a success, while some environmental groups deemed the progress insufficient. Financial, economic and political complexities remain related to how rich nations and developing nations will take steps reduce global warming.

"There were three major issues that had to be delivered here in Warsaw. One was climate finance, one was a much more clear path toward the 2014 and 2015 COPs and, of course, loss and damage," United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figeures said in a media briefing at the close of the conference. Loss and damage deals with the mechanism that provides financial support and compensation to countries facing the impacts of severe climate events.

"This COP has managed to deliver on all three, in addition to many other issues," said Figueres, at the same time acknowledging that success in addressing climate change is measured in phases.

"What is important to underscore is that as successful as this COP was, because I think it exceeded many expectations, it is not possible to solve climate change with one meeting, with one COP, with one negotiation," said Figueres. "It is imperative that every single one of these climate talks, of which we have one a year, is very firm step forward in the right direction... and this was definitely a very firm step forward toward Lima and Paris."

The Warsaw summit put the UN climate change conference on track toward future summits to be held in Lima, Peru in 2014 and in Paris in 2015, where the goal is for nations to reach a binding pact on greenhouse gas emissions, she said. 

FRIDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2013 / TRUTH-OUT.ORG