As I drove to the airport in Raleigh yesterday, I called my parents to check in before I got on the first leg of my journey to Europe, where I along with five other Duke students will be attending COP 25 in Madrid this week. Our conversation turned to what I would be doing at the COP, and my dad remarked that it seemed like every year, this annual congregation of nations to address the climate crisis becomes even more pressing than the year before as the world continues to drag its feet on the issue. Following that logic, he said, this year’s conference, the 25th of its kind, is the most urgent yet.
We’ve spent much of our class time this semester studying how the world arrived at its current situation regarding international climate change negotiations. Twenty-five years ago, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) opened for signature at the Rio Earth Summit. Since then, there have been especially successful conferences, none more so than the third COP in Kyoto in 1997 and COP 21 in Paris in 2015. There have also been conferences remembered more for their failures than whatever small pieces of progress were achieved at them (see Copenhagen, 2009).
For all the successes (and failures) of these past conferences, I’d agree with my dad: this COP is the most urgent and important one to date. NOAA projects 2019 will be among the four hottest years on record for the planet, and the present-day effects of climate change are already being felt in communities around the globe. When the year turns over in a few weeks, it will mark the beginning of a critical year in the implementation of the Paris Agreement, as next year is the first year many nations will need to step up their respective levels of ambition within their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Currently, the combined effects of the NDCs will not be enough for the world to meet its climate goals, including limiting global temperature rise to below 1.5°C before the end of the century.
With one week left in the 2019 conference, now is the chance for countries to begin to negotiate how they will accelerate progress next year addressing this crisis. In the first week of negotiations, slow progress was made on several issues, including the establishment of a global carbon market, an issue in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement that has been especially difficult to reach a consensus on. Hopefully, progress is made this week on carbon markets, time frames for reaching emissions reductions goals, and the myriad of smaller details to be worked on to address other elements of international climate policy.
I couldn’t be more excited to have the opportunity to be in Madrid this week to see how these negotiations play out and what path the world is on once this conference is complete. I’ve had experience learning about and working with U.S. climate change policy, but few chances to see how the world comes together to set a global path on this issue. I am incredibly grateful to Duke and Bass Connections for giving me the opportunity to have this experience and gain that knowledge, and I can’t wait for week two to begin tomorrow morning.
