The United Nations has held yearly conferences on Climate Change Conferences since 1995. The 24th Conference was held in Katowice, Poland 2-15 December 2018. It was an international meeting to try and forge agreement on ways to reduce the rate and effects of climate change. Negotiators from 196 countries and the EU worked on The Katowice Rulebook, implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement. Means to effect positive change in three main areas (technology; human; nature) were agreed.
Why is it important? In the words of Sir David Attenborough: “Right now we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.” Additionally, 15 year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the summit, begging politicians to take action for the future of the planet. Former US vice-President Al Gore told delegates they faced “the single most important moral choice in the history of humanity”. In our own small way, we can each contribute to tackling this issue. We can review and adjust our own lifestyles, discuss positive change with family and friends and lobby politicians.