Once a year for the past 28 years, this group has been getting together to try to unify global efforts on climate change. This year's talkfest in Dubai features a cast of more than 70,000 delegates in a sci-fi cityscape on a rehydrated desert. It ends on December 12.
Of course, Germany is attending. Germany's chief negotiator is Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena Baerbock, also a Green Party member of the Bundestag, and her stated goal is to convince other nations to switch to renewable energies and to demonstrate German solidarity with less-developed, less-polluting countries unequally impacted by climate change. The latter includes financing a mitigation and adaptation fund with about €6 billion (about NZ$11b) annually.
This is the plan - even though, despite all the Birkenstocks, bike-riding and recycling, Germany is not actually reducing its own carbon emissions as promised. In the at-times rancorous negotiations, somebody is bound to point that out.
This story is from the December 02-08, 2023 edition of New Zealand Listener.
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This story is from the December 02-08, 2023 edition of New Zealand Listener.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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