COP23 - 2017

COP23: “Leave the coal in the hole”

By: Steve Kwatcho Kengdo

The meeting of the convention and protocol bodies , namely the Conference of the Parties (COP), Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP); Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA); Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI); Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA); Subsidiary Bodies (SB) and the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA) created to prepare the entry into force of the Paris agreement is still going. Unfortunately, GCE observers were not allowed to attend those meeting today.

However, the Bula zone was specially characterized today by the presence of several activists protesting against coal mines and asking for climate justice. We could hear slogans such as:

Leave the coal in the hole!
Leave the coal in the hole!
Leave the oil in the soil!
Leave the oil in the soil!
Clean money for the south!
Kept dirty money out!

Just for a short recap, coal is one of the biggest contributor of greenhouse gases emissions and in some countries of the world, the main primary energy source. In the US approximately 67 percent of the electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, mostly coal and natural gas. Of course, holding temperature increase to well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels as adopted in the Paris agreement requires a rapid decarbonisation of the global power sector.

Worldwide CO2 Emissions due to coal (Source)
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