This year’s UN Climate Change Conference kicked off in Bonn, Germany, with strong, unified calls to hold to the path of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
The opening of the conference (COP23) took place on Monday against this year’s background of destructive hurricanes, fires, floods, droughts, melting ice and impacts on agriculture which threaten food security.
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, Patricia Espinosa, said: “Together with the Sustainable Development Agenda, we have a clear path forward to truly address climate change and sustainable development.”
Ms. Espinosa outlined the work governments will be addressing in Bonn, especially the next essential steps to ensure that the Paris Agreement’s operating system is completed in time and ways and means to implement it are strengthened.
This, according to her, is essential so that the ultimate goal of the Paris Agreement can be achieved, to hold the global average temperature rise from pre-industrial time to well below 2 degrees Celsius and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees.
She stated that immediate progress was urgent, adding that, “We need to move forward to fulfil the commitments that are due in 2020. In this regard, finance and pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions are key.”
The newly elected COP23 President, Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, said, “All over the world, vast numbers of people are suffering, bewildered by the forces ranged against them. Our job as leaders is to respond to the suffering with all means available to us.
“This means to meet our commitments in full, not back away from them.”
Mr Bainimarama said that Fiji is working to build a “Grand Coalition” between governments at every level, civil society, the private sector and faith-based organisations. The COP president intends to meet with as many non-state actors as he can who are part of the coalition.
During COP23, the city of Bonn will not only host the conference, but many cultural events that will help bring climate action closer to people in the city.
