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    Amid US shadow, nearly 200 nations pledge action on climate by December 2018

    Synopsis

    Progress has been uneven with the rule making process moving faster on some issues than others. Szyszko, however, is firm about the 2018 deadline for finalising the rules.

    ET Bureau
    BONN, GERMANY: At the end of the two weeks of talks, negotiators agreed to keep working through the year to be able to finalise by December 2018 the rulebook to implement the Paris Agreement. The task of ensuring the rules are finalized and accepted by all will rest on Poland, which will assume the chair of the UN-sponsored climate talks on December 29, 2018, which will be held in Katowice in Poland.

    To ensure that the goals set for the 2018 talks are achieved, Poland has decided to work with Fiji, which was the chairing the talks in Bonn, and Morocco, which chaired climate talks in 2016. “We have maintained that there needs to be continuity in climate policy and that is what we were planning to do, “ said Poland’s Environment Minister Jan Szyszko.

    Speaking exclusively to the ET, Poland’s environment minister said that he and his team had informally reached out to Morocco and Fiji to work together. “There is good co-operation between Morocco, Fiji, and Poland,” he said.

    The task of finalising the rules for implementing the Paris Agreement began in Marakkech, Morocco in 2016, soon after the 2015 agreement came into force. Countries agreed that they would complete negotiating and finalise the rulebook by December 2018. Over the last two weeks, negotiators have been holding discussions on the various items that would be covered by rulebook.

    Progress has been uneven with the rule making process moving faster on some issues than others. Szyszko, however, is firm about the 2018 deadline for finalising the rules. “That is my ambition and that is what the whole world is waiting for,” he said when asked if he thought the rules would be finalized in Katowice next year.

    Neither Poland no Minister Szyszko are strangers to the UN climate talks. Poland has chaired the meeting thrice before—in 2018 summit in Katowice will be the fourth for the East European country. “Poland has a long history of creating the world’s climate policies,” said Szyszko, reminding that Poland chaired the meeting for the first time in 1999. “At that time, I served as the president of the conference,” he said. The Polish Environment minister was Secretary of State in 1999 and served the chair of the 5th round of the UN-sponsored climate talks.

    Since then, Poland has chaired the talks in 2008, when the negotiations were held in Poznan and again in 2013 at Warsaw. The concept of national climate action plans, which form the core of collaborative effort enshrined in the Paris Agreement, was developed at the Warsaw round of talks in 2013.

    In conducting the 2018 talks, Poland would like to cement its claim of being proactive on climate-related issues. “The efforts made by the Polish government to host the subsequent climate summits prove our involvement in actions towards climate protection Poland wishes to strengthen its position as a leader in climate policy in European Union,” the minister said.

    Poland has been described as the laggard in addressing climate related issues. At the talks held over the past two weeks, observers from the European Union charged Poland with holding back on ratifying the Doha Amendments to the Kyoto Protocol.

    The Polish minister felt that such a characterization was not fair or accurate. “I don’t understand the noise all country are waiting for Poland,” he said, adding “each EU member is completely free to ratify the Doha Amendment and they don’t have to wait for the others.”

    Stressing on Poland’s commitment to addressing climate change, the minister said, “Poland was the first country to ratify the Paris Agreement, before other members of the European Union”.

    With Poland hosting the climate talks next year, and given the increased focus on pre-2020 action, and the decision to hold during a Katowice talks a formal evaluation of climate action in this period, the pressure on Poland to ratify the amendment to 1997 legal agreement is high. “it is critical for Poland to ratify the Doha Amendment as soon as possible, unless it wants its presidency of the climate talks next year to look like a bad joke,” said Iwo Los, climate campaigner, Greenpeace Poland.

    Szyszko said that Poland was in the process of ratifying the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol. “It is the priority. Right now the decision is in inter-services consultation. The next step will be consultation in the Parliament and signature of the President. We hope that these legislation processes end as soon as possible, in a fruitful way.”

    The expectation is that because Poland will chair the climate talks, this process would move at a faster pace. Observers say that ratifying the amendment would help Poland achieve its objectives at the Katowice talks. “Ratifying the amendments will also help build trust that developed countries are serious about their pre-2020 commitments,” said Los.


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