Though it wasn’t the official theme of the two-week United Nations climate change conference that closed in Bonn, Germany, on Friday, coal — the traditional heavy polluter — would have been a good candidate.
Despite the stylized ocean wave and palm trees of the meeting’s official logo (the meeting was presided over by Fiji but held in Germany), the combustible rock that fueled the industrial revolution took center stage. The official U.S. government delegation hosted a controversial session to explore how coal could actually help mitigate climate change. Germany, which enjoys a reputation as a green modern economy, was criticized for its reliance on coal. But in one of the major moments of the meeting, a group of more than 20 countries, led by Canada and the U.K. announced that they plan to phase out coal by 2030.
“It is a rebuke to [President] Donald Trump from the U.K. and Canada, two of America’s closest allies, that his obsession for dirty energy will not spread,” Mohamed Adow of Christian Aid told Reuters.
The conference, officially called the Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties, or COP, was the second such gathering since the 2015 signing of the Paris Agreement and the first since Trump announced that the U.S. — the world’s second-biggest polluter — would not participate in the landmark climate accord. But while the broad agreement was that the American government pullout would not be able to derail global climate action — and indeed, might have the effect of galvanizing non-government U.S. actors — the Fiji meeting was dedicated to preparations in creating the rulebook that would govern the Paris Agreement.
“We are all bound by our common interest in reducing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama told ministers and delegates on Wednesday. “This is humanity’s mission. It’s symbolic of the journey we must all make together.”
According to observers, this COP was a good example of parties getting down to the actual business of reducing greenhouse gases in line with targets agreed to in Paris two years ago.
“The only issue is Trump’s position, but I think it is mitigated, by a very large extent, by the many U.S. companies and states that are working with us, but mostly by the development of technology,” said Julian Popov, a former environment minister of Bulgaria and a fellow at the European Climate Foundation. Technology also has been critical for advancing the climate change conference’s goals, Popov added.
With war-torn Syria having announced just before the COP began that it, too, had decided to join the Paris climate accord, the official U.S. delegation took on the role of outliers at the conference, their only event focused on how fossil fuels and nuclear energy could mitigate climate change.
“Promoting coal at a climate summit is like promoting tobacco at a cancer summit,” said Michael Bloomberg, the businessman, philanthropist and former mayor of New York. Bloomberg helped fund the “Climate Action Center” pavilion, part of the unofficial U.S. presence at the talks that included Govs. Jerry Brown of California and Jay Inslee of Washington state.
The Americans were not the only ones feeling the heat over coal. Germany is still heavily reliant on coal while it transitions to renewables after the 2010 decision to curtail all nuclear power. According to a leaked government report, the country is likely to miss both its 2020 and 2030 coal reduction targets.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had earned the moniker “climate chancellor,” addressed the delegates on Wednesday, saying , “Climate change is an issue determining our destiny as mankind — it will determine the well-being of all of us.”
Greenpeace, the environmental activist group, sought to bring attention to Germany’s use of coal by blocking the path of a coal freighter, which was transporting coal to one of Germany’s coal-fired power plants. Activists held up banners that read: “Merkel’s Dirty Secret: Coal.”
The Powering Past Coal Alliance, on the other hand, led by Canada and the United Kingdom, announced on the penultimate day of the meeting, was welcomed by many delegates.
“It’s a definitely positive signal,” said Oras Tynkkynen, a Finnish parliamentarian and a member of the European Green Party who participated in the conference. “It just highlights that what is happening at the U.S. federal level is looking in the back mirror — that is not where the future lies.”
Since most countries that are part of the year 2030 alliance are already phasing out coal, the effects on the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will be limited. “It would have been really surprising given the background five years ago,” said Popov about the announcement. “But as things are, it’s becoming very realistic.”
The goal is to sign up 50 members by next year’s climate conference, to be held in in Katowice, Poland, one of the Europe’s most-polluted cities.
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Climate Talks a “Rebuke to Donald Trump” From America?s Allies originally appeared on usnews.com
