Updates from Madrid - The Climate Reality Project

From the outside, the start of the United Nations' COP 25 climate conference in Madrid last week looked a lot like most of the 24 annual meetings that came before it. Straight-faced negotiators sitting in meeting rooms, trying to find something like consensus between nearly 200 countries on the next steps in the march to lower greenhouse gas emissions and stop rising temperatures in time to prevent global catastrophe. But what makes this COP (short for "Conference of the Parties") different is that this is the year that millions flooded streets of cities worldwide to demand real action now during the Global Climate Strikes. This is the year that the publisher of the definitive guide to the English language, Oxford University Press, declared "climate emergency" as its word of the year, after use of the term spiked by nearly 10,800 percent (you read that right) from September 2018 to September 2019.    Cities are becoming critical players in the fight against the climate crisis. Natural solutions like reforestation and the health of our oceans are finally beginning to get the attention they deserve. And women's and indigenous people's voices are starting to gain traction on the world's stage.   Plus, this is the year a bombshell report showed the world is way off track in reducing emissions at anything like the pace necessary to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We know the world has to get much more ambitious and move much faster in slashing emissions. These two weeks of talks are essential to making that happen.    The first step here is to get the world to aim higher. Back in 2015, when nearly 200 countries ("parties" in UN-speak) signed on to the Paris Agreement, they agreed to work to hold global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with every effort being taken to limit global temperature rise to less than 1.5 degrees.    To get there, each party submitted a nationally determined contribution (NDC) spelling out the steps it would take to reduce emissions and a timeframe for doing so.    As part of the agreement, each party is supposed to submit new or revised NDCs every five years, ideally raising the stakes and making more ambitious commitments that accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels over time.    The first time this happens is in the lead-up to COP 26 in 2020, making this year's conference the last formal opportunity for negotiators to step up and demand that they hold each other accountable for making more ambitious commitments next year.    Climate Reality staff, branch managers, over 80 trained Climate Reality Leaders, and our founder and chairman, former US Vice President Al Gore, are on the ground in Madrid, presenting both in the COP venue and publicly, writing letters and articles for negotiators and public media alike, and taking to the streets to put pressure on global leaders to raise climate ambitions and NDC targets in their own countries.   Follow along on our social media channels and blog as we share some perspectives from the ground. And then take the next step and apply to become a trained Climate Reality Leader in 2020 to grow our grassroots movement.    Applications for our upcoming trainings will open soon, but in the meantime, sign up to learn more about what it means to be a Climate Reality Leader and be among the first to receive the application when it is live.   Thank you for all that you do.   - Your friends at Climate Reality

                           

.