- by
- 07 24, 2024
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MAKING KATOWICE the host of COP24, the latest of the United Nations’ annual climate summits, was meant to symbolise the transition from the old, dirty world to a new, clean one. Spiritually, the city is the home of Poland’s coal miners. Today, it is replete with besuited management consultants and bearded baristas. The venue itself was on top of a disused mine in the city centre.Ahead of the two-week powwow, which concluded on December 15th, many observers feared that the meeting would instead highlight the unresolved contradictions involved in making that transition. It therefore came as a relief that nearly 14,000 delegates from 195 countries managed—more or less, and a day late—to deliver the gathering’s primary objective: a “rule book” for putting into practice the Paris agreement of 2015, which commits the world to keeping global warming “well below” 2°C relative to pre-industrial times, and preferably within 1.5°C.