Lack Of Leadership Remains Chief Obstacle To Reaching Katowice Agreement - Greenpeace Head

Lack of Leadership Remains Chief Obstacle to Reaching Katowice Agreement - Greenpeace Head

The lack of a strong leadership position at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) has been the greatest obstacle remaining in the negotiations to finalize the Katowice agreement, Jennifer Morgan, Greenpeace's executive director, told Sputnik.

KATOWICE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th December, 2018) The lack of a strong leadership position at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) has been the greatest obstacle remaining in the negotiations to finalize the Katowice agreement, Jennifer Morgan, Greenpeace's executive director, told Sputnik.

COP24 is taking place on December 2-14 in the Polish city of Katowice. The main goal of the conference participants is to discuss ways of implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement.

"The main stumbling block mostly is leadership. I think there are solutions to the different issues that are on the table. I think what we really need is a group of countries that understands what's at stake to be forging forward, stating that all countries need to increase their ambition based on the new IPCC report which just shows how important what happens in the next few years is," Morgan said on the sidelines of COP24.

Greenpeace's executive director went on to urge countries that have chosen to "note" rather than "welcome" the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to reconsider their position on the document which said that global warming should be decreased 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.

"Those negotiations aren't over yet and I would certainly hope that each of those countries, whether it would be the United States, or Russia, or Saudi Arabia, that they rethink their position noting how much support there is for a welcoming of the IPCC report. They need to not only welcome it, they need to decide that they're going to start domestic processes to increase the ambition. The public isn't going to stand for anything else," Morgan underlined.

Kuwait, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, the world's largest fossil fuel producers, torpedoed the major UN climate report by insisting that it be "noted" rather than "welcomed." The United States merely "express appreciation" to the scientists behind the report and then proceed to host a pro-coal exhibit at the conference.

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 to keep 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.