After two weeks of negotiations, the climate summit of Katowice (COP24) concludes with the approval of the rulebook that will govern the application of the Paris Agreement. The set of standards will make it possible to measure, in a framework of common transparency, the efforts to fight against climate change, the adaptation to its impacts and the financing committed by the countries.
The Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, who headed the Spanish delegation and was elected facilitator of the negotiations, has appraised the adopted agreement as “very important”. “All the countries that have ratified the Paris Agreement have agreed on the development rules that will allow us to be fully operational and manage the learning and confidence process that will lead us to fulfill the ambition of having a safe and decarbonized world at the end of the century”
Ribera stressed that this regulatory package “regulates issues as different as how to anticipate and how to monitor funding; what are the obligations we assume in terms of adaptation; how to reflect an increase in mitigation ambition on the national contributions or, more importantly, at the heart of the package, how to report and use transparency systems as a key tool to gain confidence in our capacity to act in terms of climate”.
The biennial transparency reports, which will be presented in accordance with these rules, are essential to be able to analyze the progress towards the global goals established by the Paris Agreement, as they will provide key information on the greenhouse gas emissions evolution at the global level, adaptation actions and financial flows.
This is the reason why these rules of transparency are considered the backbone of the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
Without concrete commitments
Despite acknowledging that no advance has been achieved on the mechanisms of carbon markets on the basis of a common United Nations system and that no consensus has been reached to incorporate more ambitious objectives in view of the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Experts on Change Climate (IPCC), Ribera stressed that “the political message that comes out of this meeting is very positive.”
On the IPCC Report, the adopted document merely acknowledges the role of the IPCC in providing the scientific basis that will help countries to adopt policies against climate change and requests all States to take into account the results of the recent Special Report on the 1.5ºC in the negotiations.
“At a time when the international community is encountering great difficulties on the ground to advance the multilateral agenda, when some political leaders boast of their lack of confidence and their willingness to break with the international community, the will prevails to continue working in a cooperative way so that it is through the multilateral system that the great global challenges are tackled “, Ribera added.
Spain at COP24
During COP24, Spain has joined the Solidarity and Just Transition Silesia Declaration, which commits governments to the creation of quality employment in their emissions reduction actions and adaptation plans to climate change. Spain has also joined the Declaration for Electromobility to promote innovative and sustainable transport models, the Forest for Climate Declaration, which calls on States to conserve and increase natural CO2 sinks, and the Declaration for greater climate ambition of the High Ambition Coalition.
