World of Politics with Harry McGee

COP 27; it’s all the rage these days. Good cop? Bad cop? Fair cop? In actual fact, COP stands for Conference of Parties. It’s the United Nations Climate Change Conference; it more or less meets every year and involves most leaders of 197 nations peppered around the globe.

The talks focus on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), an agreement to “stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent human-generated interference to the world’s climate system.

So every year, leaders discuss and try to reach agreement on the best ways to limit – or reduce – global temperatures and to cut emissions from fossil fuels and from human industry and activity.

COP 1 was held in Berlin in 1995. What’s happening in Egypt this week and next is the 27th meeting of world leaders on climate change.

I have attended two COPs: COP 15 in in 2009; and COP 21 in 2015.

COP 15 was held at the end of November and beginning of December in Copenhagen. I was added to the reporting ticket and booked my accommodation at the last minute. I managed to secure a room the size of a generous coffin (and it felt like one too) at the price of the Paris Ritz.

My biggest thrill there were seeing Barack Obama in the flesh as he passed by me in the hall – surrounded by a retinue of secret service agents. I also had the briefest of forgettable chats with Thom Yorke, the lead singer with Radiohead who has a huge interest in the issue.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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