Climate Conference: The Controversy Over Coal (Mining) and Coal (Financing)

The industrialized countries had actually pledged to fill the UN climate fund with $100 billion a year from 2020. “This target is clearly missed, in the best case we are 80 billion”, explains Graz economist and IPCC author Birgit Bednar-Fridly.

He hopes that this gap will be filled. Countries most affected by climate change are allowed to use the funds for two broad areas: for climate change adaptation, which means, for example, coastal protection, technology and information transfer or forecasting and early warning systems. and for climate protection, for example by expanding green power generation, but also protecting against other greenhouse gases such as methane or nitrous oxide.

“Phasical elimination of coal” will become another important point. Researcher Bednar-Friedl raised concerns that coal is available worldwide, but CO. available in large quantities₂Intense energy source without which poor countries can hardly do.

The last point concerns forest conservation: on the one hand, like big CO₂– Can storage (rainforests, boreal forests of the north) be preserved and protected, on the other hand there is the question of wood as a raw material – and how sustainable it is.

What exactly does the researcher expect from Glasgow?

Bednar-Friedl explains: “I have become a little more optimistic. I don’t believe we will achieve a really big milestone that all countries will set significantly more ambitious targets. But there may be an agreement on a more concrete roadmap for how we can get there in the next five years. To me, a goal that is too weak that everyone can agree on will result in a much worse outcome than a more effective goal that not everyone can agree on.”