If you are still looking for the perfect present for an annoying neighbor or unfaithful spouse, there are several services that will send a lump of coal. It would be an appropriate gift for delegates at the COP24 climate talks in Katowice, Poland, to send each other, after what has been an often acrimonious fortnight of negotiations. Right from the choice of the host city, in the heartland of the Polish mining industry, coal has loomed large over the meeting, intended to agree on ways to implement the global commitment to curbing climate change made in Paris in 2015.
At the time of writing, the talks had not concluded. The closing plenaries of the Conference of the Parties — the countries that are members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change — and of the CMA, which includes only countries that are in the Paris agreement, were scheduled for Friday, but the wrangling was seen as very likely to drag on until Sunday. I was at the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks, COP15, when the talks were still going on over the weekend as the conference venue, the Bella Center, was being cleared for the next event.
Two incidents at the start of the week highlighted the difficulty of finding a global consensus on how to tackle the threat of climate change, or even agreeing what the threat is. Over the weekend, the US teamed up with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to water down governments’ approval of a report spelling out the consequences of allowing the global temperatures to rise more than 1.5C since pre-industrial times. It was no coincidence that the objecting group included the world’s three largest oil producers and another in the top 10. Then on Monday, the US delegation held an event to emphasize the importance of fossil fuels, reflecting the Trump administration’s support for the country’s “energy renaissance”, and its plan to withdraw from the Paris agreement.
Wells Griffith, the lead official for international affairs at the US Department of Energy, told the meeting “we strongly believe no country should have to sacrifice economic prosperity or energy security in pursuit of environmental sustainability”. Patrick Suckling, the head of the Australian delegation at the talks, showed support by speaking at the event, and Mr Griffith said later that there had been “a lot of interest” from other countries, suggesting wider enthusiasm for the US position.