Over the next two weeks, Ministers, officials, non-governmental organisations, corporate lobbyists and protestors from around the world will assemble in Katowice, Poland. There, whether inside or outside the conference halls, they will participate in the twenty-fourth United Nations led Climate Change Conference, known as COP24.
The formal objective will be to turn the commitments made in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement into a work programme and to determine how funding committed by wealthier nations – originally US$100 billion per annum – might be sustained and better delivered to poorer countries.
This annual event has become something of a circus in which outcomes are agreed but implementation and adherence to commitments have become optional for some nations. This is despite the issue being genuinely existential for the Caribbean and other low-lying small island and coastal developing states in regions, such as the Pacific or the Indian Ocean.
