COP-24 in Katowice to set an Implementation Agenda for the Paris Agreement
December 3 marks the start of the most important global forum on climate policy, COP-24 of UN Climate Convention (UNFCCC) in Katowice, Poland. The 14th session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol will be held simultaneously (CMP 14).
COP-24 will involve approximately 30,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries, including heads of government and ministers responsible for environment and climate.
The main aim of the summit is to reach an international agreement on setting up an action plan to implement the Paris Agreement of 2015.
During the summit each country should present its own plans on reaching the climate change mitigation targets in the coming years.
There will be special thematic days dedicated to different subjects at the summit, including Electromobility Day (4 December) and Forest Day (7 December).
The Forest Declaration elaborated by the Polish Presidency of COP-24 will be presented and proposed for adoption by countries on 12 December.
EUSTAFOR and a number of Brussels-based forest stakeholders published a joint statement that explains how forests and the forest sector can play an active role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. The document published ahead of COP24 is available under this link.
On 7 December a Forest Day has been planned, the main focus of which will be given to the methods of assessing carbon flux in forests as well as the role of harvested wood products. These topics align perfectly with those of Polish State Forests (Lasy Państwowe). The forest cover in Poland has continuously been increasing over last decades to almost 30% of the country’s area. More than 500.000 ha of new forests were planted between 1995 and 2014. Each year the Polish State Forests plant about 500 million trees (1000 trees per minute on average).
Worth noticing is that the ability of forests to absorb CO2 can actually be increased by planting appropriate tree species, which can help to combat climate change. During COP24 the “Forest Carbon Farms Project” will be presented with an aim to explain how to reach a balance between emissions and removals using the natural process of absorbing CO2 by soil and forests as well as by applying innovative solutions in forest management.
State Forests also actively participate in the government program “Clean Air”, which includes various measures to rationalize energy consumption of buildings and increase the share of energy coming from renewable sources.
Elaborated based on materials received from Polish State Forests.
Published 07/12/2018, Brussels
