UN Climate Summit host Poland looks to help seal Paris Agreement

NEW DELHI: With extreme weather events such as heat waves and floods becoming more frequent, Poland, the host of this year’s UN climate negotiations, is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that rules for implementing the landmark Paris Agreement aimed at combating global warming will be finalised at the meeting in Katowice in December.

Poland plans to kick off the summit with a gathering of global leaders to help overcome the deep political differences that remain on key issues and ensure that negotiators have the right impetus to complete the task. “Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has proposed a summit on December 3 that will bring together all heads of state and government to share their commitment to implement the Paris Agreement,” Poland’s Deputy Environment Minister Micha³ Kurtyka, who will serve as the chair of the United Nations Climate Change meeting in Katowice, told ET.

The Paris Agreement is an accord reached in December 2015 to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low-carbon future. Countries had agreed in Marrakech in 2016 to complete the process of framing rules for this treaty by December 2018. Kurtyka said his “expectation” and that of all negotiating groups that he met in Bangkok recently is that the rulebook for the Paris Agreement will be completed in Katowice.