Energy & Environment

Almost 200 countries gather to discuss climate change in Poland

Envoys from almost 200 countries are meeting for two weeks of talks on curbing climate change starting Sunday in Poland.

“We are here to enable the world to act together on climate change,” said Poland’s environmental envoy, Michal Kurtyka, who is presiding over the United Nations meeting, The Associated Press reports.

The “conference of the parties,” known as COP24, is designed for the signatories of the Paris climate accord to discuss how they will implement their commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. withdrew from the accord last year.

{mosads}”This is the most important COP since the signing of the agreement, and we need initiatives like yours to testify that governments, the private sector and individuals can work together to tackle climate change by committing to multilateralism,” said U.N. Climate Change Deputy Executive Secretary Ovais Sarmad, at a kickoff event, according to a U.N. release.

President Trump has resisted the U.N.’s policy angles on climate change, pushing back against the U.N.’s most recent climate assessment, which called for unprecedentedly dramatic economic changes.

The White House claims the U.N. overestimates the effects of climate change in its modeling techniques.

Chief White House economics adviser Larry Kudlow in October said that the U.N. models “have not been very successful in the last 20 years.”

At last week’s Group of 20 summit, every country involved except for the U.S. agreed to the 2015 Paris climate accords.