Greenpeace Says US Side Event Promoting Fossil Fuel At COP24 'Detached From Reality'

A side event organized by the US government at COP24 promoting the use of fossil fuel shows how out of touch Washington is with the reality as the use of this fossil has been going down in the United States for years, Jennifer Morgan, Greenpeace's executive director, told Sputnik.

KATOWICE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th December, 2018) A side event organized by the US government at COP24 promoting the use of fossil fuel shows how out of touch Washington is with the reality as the use of this fossil has been going down in the United States for years, Jennifer Morgan, Greenpeace's executive director, told Sputnik.

After blocking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that suggested decreasing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) instead of 2 degrees set out in the Paris deal in order to avoid weather disasters, the United States went on to host a pro-fossil fuel side event at the COP24 to "showcase ways to use fossil fuels as cleanly and efficiently as possible, as well as the use of emission-free nuclear energy." The event largely flopped, with only Australia attending alongside the host.

"The side event by the United States, by the [US President Donald] Trump administration, just shows how fundamentally out of touch they are with the economic and climate realities. Coal use in the United States continues to drop. Actually, last year they had a doubling of closures of coal plants across the United States so it's just in a different reality that they are working in," Morgan said on the sidelines of COP24.

The Greenpeace executive expressed hope the United States would play a larger role in tackling climate change in the future.

"I think that obviously we need to see the United States play a leadership role in tackling climate change. That hasn't gone away just because you have a president who is completely irresponsible on this issue. I hope that by the end of the week that they will not try to block progress moving forward," Morgan underlined.

The dangers of climate change became more pronounced a year ago after Trump announced that the United States, one of the countries producing the largest amount of carbon emissions in the world, would be withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. Washington formally notified the United Nations of its intention on August 4. However, the country cannot officially exit the accord until November 4, 2020.

The Paris climate deal, created within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, went into force on November 4, 2016. It has been ratified by 184 of the 195 parties to the accord. The deal aims at keeping the increase in average global temperature at below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The 24th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) is taking place on December 2-14 in the Polish city of Katowice. The main goal of the conference is to discuss ways of implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement.