What was accomplished at COP 24? A civil society perspective

Simon Chambers has just come back from COP 24, the Annual United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland. The conference just ended on the weekend. The conference was scheduled to take place between December 2 and 14 but went into overtime to resolve important outstanding issues.

Simon is Head of Communications at the ACT Alliance, a coalition of 151 churches and faith-based organisations working together in over 125 countries. Unlike some of the far right churches we hear about, the membership of ACT Alliance consists of churches which do believe that climate change is real, and that faith based groups should be part of the dialogue.Their ACT for Climate Justice Now campaign aims to bridge the technical, moral and ethical perspectives on climate justice. AT COP24 it mobilized members to safeguard the integrity of creation.

On today's rabble radio, he talks to rabble radio executive producer Victoria Fenner from his office in Toronto to share his perspective on what was accomplished.

Simon estimates that there were about 28,000 people at COP 24. He says that being at COP is a rare opportunity to be together with people who are passionate about climate work, though they're not all on the same side or have the same solutions. The language and terminology can be very difficult for non specialists to understand, so that's one of the reasons why he was there. One aspect of his job is to communicate to his stakeholders and the general public, translating language which is often dense, scientific and complicated.

And a big part of his job is about bringing the voices of the world's vulnerable population into the discussion about climate change.

Image: ACT Alliance at COP24. Photo by Simon Chambers.

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