It is that time of year again. Thousands gather in once place to discuss one of the biggest challenges humanity is facing - climate change. This time it is Katowice, the heard of the coal production of Poland that is the host for the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, COP24 in short. Climate change is an issue that epitomizes with lucid clarity the limitations of governing global issues within the constraints formed by rules and mindsets dominated by national self-interest and national sovereignty. Could we imagine that if a threat of this magnitude would face a single country - and that country had the means to address it, that it would stick its head in the sand and wait for better times?
Climate change illustrates the need for global public governance that is as effective to ensure the well-being of humanity and the planet as national governments are. In the rule system we have now under the Paris Agreement that means that every nation that has ratified the agreement needs to commit whole heartedly to all of its the obligations, both the legal and the moral ones. One of these obligations is to make sure that the 'ambition mechanism' of the Paris Agreement can work. The core idea of the ambition mechanism is that every country shall reflect on the outcome of the global stocktake and use this as input to enhance their level of ambition if the stocktake shows this is necessary. And the same goes for the 'trial stocktake' this year in the form of the Talanoa Dialogue. I will bring a policy brief to COP24 that looks at how countries are preparing to enable the ambition mechanism and that suggests measures both at national and international level that are key to making it work.
No comments:
Post a Comment