COP 19: An Introduction

It is that time of year again... the time where delegates from all over the world congregate for the UN Framework on Climate Change Convention Conference of the Parties to discuss the looming question of how to mitigate and adapt to climate disruption. The next two years will be pretty important as we set the stage for how we as a global community work together to tackle this issue. This is the collective action problem of all time. How do you get billions of people to work together to encourage funding for adaptation and mitigation technologies, to alter the way they live to reduce their carbon footprint, and to work to alter government policies to move away from technologies that produce a lot of carbon to those that in comparison produce very little? It is a challenge that the world has never faced before, and one that requires commitments from everyone around the planet. The reason being that if countries and people defect from attempting to strongly take on this problem everyone else has incentive to do the same thing because nothing will change unless everyone commits. If the US, Canada, China, South America, Russia, India and Brazil do not take strong stances on climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies while the rest of the world does the results will be limited and the problem will still persist. And if any of the countries above try to get their way out of it you can bet that the others will follow suit because that means the pollution will still be increasing while large economies will take a hit investing in relatively expensive green infrastructure, which they will only do if everyone else does it as well. It is a complicated issue, and in these next two years countries will be putting what they think they are willing to commit to on the table, and the world will be watching.

So what is so important about the next two years? Well I will tell you. In the next two years a new agreement will be made that will replace the Kyoto Protocol. This is one that the world is hoping everyone can agree to, even the US, which will be hard since they never ratify anything that the UN produces. This agreement has been in negotiating rounds for the past couple years in what is called the ADP or the Ad Hoc Working Group in the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. The negotiators have begun to craft this, but with only two more conferences it is time to get serious. Now is the time commitments to the commitment are being made, and it is a great time to start to pressuring countries hard to actually commit to the idea of mitigating climate disruption significantly. This is why I am here. As a part of the largest environmental NGO in the US, the Sierra Club representing millions of members and supporters I am working to create an atmosphere where the US has to commit. Seriously commit. I will be interacting with individuals around the globe as well as the US negotiators to attempt to influence the outcome of this process, and I believe there is hope.

After 19 hours of traveling with a cough (which makes people run away from your presence like you have the plague), a cold shower, and a power outage caused by me not using my converter correctly in the hostel I am more than excited to be in Warsaw to work on combating climate change. I truly believe that our global community can provide real solutions to this issue. It just takes a little push to encourage humanity to do great things.