Eighteen days remain until the start of the most important annual event in the fight against climate change. The twenty-third United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop 23) will be held in Bonn, Germany, from 6 to 17 November. It will be the first organised after United States President Donald Trump's announcement of his intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the accord reached by 195 nations at the close of Cop 21 in December 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HPOrwca1mE

"Cop 23 in Bonn, a bridge towards the 2018 summit in Poland"

Despite the shadow cast by Washington, the main objective of Cop 23 – hosted for logistical reasons by a European nation but whose presidency has been entrusted to the Fiji Islands, one of the world's most vulnerable nations in the face of climate change – is precisely to translate into concrete action the goals set out in the document signed in France two years ago. "The conference will need to serve as a bridge between the work done in Marrakech during Cop 22 and what will be carried out in 2018 in Poland," explained Frank Bainimarama, Prime Minister of Fiji and President of Cop 23 in Bonn.

The summit scheduled for the end of next year in Katowice will indeed be crucial. It is on that occasion that governments around the world will be asked to review the so-called INDCs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions), that is, the greenhouse gas emission reduction pledges formally put forward by the international community. These commitments were submitted even before Cop 21 in Paris. The problem, however, is that they are far from sufficient.

Frank Bainimarama, President of the Fiji Islands and of Cop 23 in Bonn ©Simon Watts/Getty Images

The world called upon to "compensate" for the choices of Donald Trump's United States

The Paris Agreement states that action must be taken to ensure that the average global temperature on the surface of land and oceans does not exceed pre-industrial levels by more than 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, while endeavouring to remain as close as possible to 1.5 degrees. Now, based on calculations carried out by the French government itself ahead of the 2015 conference, the trajectory based on current INDCs would lead us to +2.7 degrees. This estimate is considered optimistic even by numerous environmental NGOs, which have repeatedly explained how 3 degrees could easily be exceeded.

"In Paris," observed Lucille Dufour of the Réseau Action Climat network on the French broadcaster France 24, "guidelines were provided, but the Agreement is not sufficiently transparent. In Bonn and Katowice, it will be necessary to accelerate and to specify what needs to be done in concrete terms." All the more so given that the policies announced by Donald Trump – in particular his intention to revive the coal sector – will in practice work in the opposite direction. Those who remain in the Paris Agreement (that is, the entire world except the United States, at least for now) will therefore need to multiply their efforts, including to compensate for Washington's choices.

Cop 23 in Bonn will be presided over by the Fiji Islands, one of the nations most vulnerable to climate change

"For us," added Bainimarama, "the stakes are of the utmost importance. Particularly for our friends in the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Kiribati, since the very survival of those nations is at stake. Turning the commitments made two years ago from theory into practice is essential. But it would not even be enough to save us: the challenge is in fact to convince the world to go further."

In the opening image, participants in the preparatory work for Cop 23, in the Fiji Islands. Image taken from the official Twitter account of Cop 23.