In a bid to lay out a road map for solving climate change, international leaders from around the world - and public figures including Sir David Attenborough - convened in Katowice, Poland, today to begin the UN's COP24 summit

This week, national leaders, delegates and business representatives are convening in Poland’s Katowice for COP24 – the 24th Conference of the Parties summit.

In the most seminal international gathering of its kind since 2015’s Paris Agreement, the talks set to take place over the coming days at the conference aim to catalogue the last three years’ progress, facilitate new climate actions and lay out a road map for a sustainable future.

Poland’s president Andrzej Duda, speaking at the opening ceremony, said: “Dynamic climate changes are affecting all corners of the globe, from the island states in the Pacific Ocean to those located all across Europe.

“It constitutes one of the gravest threats of our time. We are witnessing dynamic or extreme weather conditions that include more frequent rainfall and heavy heatwaves and droughts.

“For example, here in Poland during the summer, a drought caused losses estimated at about 830m euros (£740m), affecting 130,000 farms while destroying 3.5 million hectares of crops.

“Therefore, it’s crucially important that in the face of the challenges presented by climate change, we must work together in the best possible coalition of governments, international organisations, civil society and businesses.”

Also known as the Katowice Climate Change Conference, COP24 is an international convention aimed at finalising the practical implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement, lasting from 2nd December to 14th December 2018.

It is an integral part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and is the 24th summit in a series dating back to 2005.

In attendance today at the opening ceremony was the World Bank – a global partnership seeking to mitigate global poverty using sustainable solutions.

CEO Kristalina Georgieva said: “By the time my eight-year-old granddaughter is 20, climate change will push 100 million people into poverty.

“By the time she’s 40, as many as 143 million people could become climate migrants, just in three regions of the world.

“And if she lives to be 90, the planet will be hot and barely liveable, unless we act.”

Ms Georgieva told the audience that World Bank has doubled its climate finance since 2015 from $10bn (£7.9bn) to $20bn (£15.7bn), and plans to do so again by 2020.

It has also set a target to finance $200bn (£157bn) for helping countries implement various climate actions agendas.

What is Just Transition? Preserving jobs in fossil fuel industries

During his address, Poland’s president Andrzej Duda explained the Just Transition declaration, which will be implemented into the Paris Agreement.

It is aimed at ensuring job safety for those in the fossil fuel industry as the world moves towards a low-carbon economy.

He said: “Just Transition should be understood as a tool to support climate policy, not as an alternative to it.

“The declaration complements the Paris Agreement by adding an important social aspect to it.

“The transition towards low carbon offers a number of economic, social and health benefits, but regions that are traditionally reliant of fossil fuels are set to incur costs.

“For example, places where coal mining is vital, providing fuel to the surrounding region and offering stable jobs.

“So our process of transition needs to be a benefit to these places as well, providing stable energy careers, meaning countries need to strike the right balance so as not to pose threats to their economies and societies.

“Public policies aimed at reducing emissions often face social resistance, especially if they’re not accompanied by safety programmes for the workers whose jobs will be transformed.

“Just Transition is supposed to ensure life in a healthy and clean environment while also guaranteeing job safety and economic stability.”

What did Sir David Attenborough say?

Sir David Attenborough also attended the summit, arguing climate change is the biggest threat to face the planet in thousands of years.

The acclaimed natural historian and broadcaster, closing the summit’s opening ceremony, said: “Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years – climate change.

“If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.

“The UN provides a unique platform that can unite the whole world, and, as the Paris Agreement proved, together, we can make real change happen.”

“The people have spoken. Leaders of the world – you must lead.

“The continuation of our civilisations and the natural world upon which we depend is in your hands.” </s> President Muhammadu Buhari left Abuja on Saturday for Poland to attend the 24th session of the Climate Change Conference known as the Parties (COP24).

Mr. Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President (Media & Publicity), said in a statement on Friday that COP24, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), would hold from December 2-4, 2018 in the Polish city of Katowice..

The COP24 Summit, taking place at the International Conference Centre (MCK) and the adjacent Spodek Arena in Katowice, is being convened under the Presidency of Poland.

According to the organisers, the conference is expected to finalise the rules for implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change under the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP) – the rule book for implementation.

During the Leaders’ Summit at COP24, President Buhari will deliver a national statement highlighting Nigeria’s commitment to addressing climate change by implementing the goals set out in its National Determined Contributions, Adesina said.

The president would also use the occasion to accentuate Nigeria’s willingness to work with international partners to reverse the negative effects of climate change in Africa and the world over.

He said President Buhari would be expecting that developed nations scale up their emission reduction activities in order to limit the increase in average global temperatures to well below 2 degrees centigrade between now and 2020.

The Leaders’ Summit is expected to adopt a ‘‘Declaration on Solidarity and Just Transition Silesia,’’ – named after the region of Poland where this year’s climate conference is taking place, he said.

As a member of the Committee of the African Heads of State on Climate Change – a group of 10 African countries that meets and takes positions concerning issues of climate change on behalf of the continent – Nigeria has been at the forefront of advancing policies and initiatives.

It is aimed at addressing significant challenges occasioned by climate change such as reviving the Lake Chad, halting and reversing desertification, flooding, ocean surge and oil spillage.

President Buhari will continue to champion these pressing issues at COP24 in Katowice, among others, as well as reiterate Nigeria’s position on the need for African countries to access financial resources, especially the Green Climate Fund to draw up climate change adaptation policies and actions for implementation.

The Nigerian delegation will also showcase the policy measures and actions of the Federal Government at ensuring environmental sustainability and effectively combating climate change through several side events within the Nigerian pavilion.

While in Poland, President Buhari will hold an interactive session with the Nigerian community in that country.

The Nigerian leader is also scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with the President of Poland Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The President was accompanied by Governors Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu, Yahaya Bello of Kogi and Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger.

Others on his entourage were the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, and the Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Jibrin. </s> Police said that 65,000 people marched through Brussels, Belgium, on December 2, demanding action on climate change. The march was to mark the start of the 24th United Nations Climate Change Convention in Poland. The conference was to have a special focus on carbon neutrality. Credit: En finir avec les poignées d’amour via Storyful </s> Police said that 65,000 people marched through Brussels, Belgium, on December 2, demanding action on climate change. The march was to mark the start of the 24th United Nations Climate Change Convention in Poland. The conference was to have a special focus on carbon neutrality. Credit: Phil Meert via Storyful </s> UN Climate Change News, Katowice, 15 December – Governments have adopted a robust set of guidelines for implementing the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement.

The implementation of the agreement will benefit people from all walks of life, especially the most vulnerable.

The agreed ‘Katowice Climate Package’ is designed to operationalize the climate change regime contained in the Paris Agreement. Under the auspices of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, it will promote international cooperation and encourage greater ambition.

The guidelines will promote trust among nations that all countries are playing their part in addressing the challenge of climate change.

The President of COP24, Mr. Michal Kurtyka of Poland, said: “All nations have worked tirelessly. All nations showed their commitment. All nations can leave Katowice with a sense of pride, knowing that their efforts have paid off. The guidelines contained in the Katowice Climate Package provide the basis for implementing the agreement as of 2020”.

The Katowice package includes guidelines that will operationalize the transparency framework.

It sets out how countries will provide information about their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that describe their domestic climate actions. This information includes mitigation and adaptation measures as well as details of financial support for climate action in developing countries.

The package also includes guidelines that relate to:
• None The process for establishing new targets on finance from 2025 onwards to follow-on from the current target of mobilizing USD 100 billion per year from 2020 to support developing countries
• None How to conduct the Global Stocktake of the effectiveness of climate action in 2023
• None How to assess progress on the development and transfer of technology

The UN’s Climate Chief, Ms. Patricia Espinosa said: “This is an excellent achievement! The multilateral system has delivered a solid result. This is a roadmap for the international community to decisively address climate change”.

“The guidelines that delegations have been working on day and night are balanced and clearly reflect how responsibilities are distributed amongst the world’s nations”, she said.

“They incorporate the fact that countries have different capabilities and economic and social realities at home, while providing the foundation for ever increasing ambition”, she added.

The agreed guidelines mean that countries can now establish the national systems that are needed for implementing the Paris Agreement as of 2020. The same will be done at the international level.

Functioning together, these systems will ensure that nations can act in an atmosphere of trust and assess progress of their climate actions.

“While some details will need to be finalised and improved over time, the system is to the largest part place”, Ms. Espinosa said.

The main issues still to be resolved concern the use of cooperative approaches, as well as the sustainable development mechanism, as contained in the Paris Agreement’s article 6. These would allow countries to meet a part of their domestic mitigation goals through the use of so-called “market mechanisms”.

Market mechanisms provide flexible instruments for reducing the costs of cutting emissions, such as carbon markets.

Here, the Paris Agreement recognizes the need for global rules to safeguard the integrity of all countries’ efforts.

These global rules are important to ensure that each tonne of emissions released into the atmosphere is accounted for.

In this way, progress towards the emission limitation goals of the Paris Agreement can be accurately measured.

“From the beginning of the COP, it very quickly became clear that this was one area that still required much work and that the details to operationalize this part of the Paris Agreement had not yet been sufficiently explored”, explained Ms. Espinosa.

“After many rich exchanges and constructive discussions, the greatest majority of countries were willing to agree and include the guidelines to operationalize the market mechanisms in the overall package”, she said.

“Unfortunately, in the end, the differences could not be overcome”.

Because of this, countries have agreed to finalise the details for market mechanisms in the coming year in view of adopting them at the next UN Climate Change Conference (COP25).

The Fiji-led Talanoa Dialogue, a year-long inclusive dialogue around ambition as it relates to the Paris Agreement, concluded at COP24, with the Global warming of 1.5C report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a major input.

“As the decision adopted indicates, there is a clear recognition of the IPCC’s role in providing scientific input to inform countries in strengthening their response to the threat of climate change”, Ms. Espinosa underlined.

“I thank all experts for their hard work and important contribution to the IPCC’s work”, she added.

The final High-Level session in Katowice resulted in the Talanoa Call for Action, which calls upon all countries and stakeholders to act with urgency.

Countries are encouraged to factor the outcome of the dialogue into efforts to increase their ambition and to update their nationally determined contributions, which detail nations’ climate actions, in 2020.

A High-Level stock-taking of actions taken before 2020 gave countries the opportunity to assess their current level of ambition. Another stock-taking is planned for 2019.

“While there are clearly gaps that remain, the stock-take of actions taken before 2020 and the Talanoa Dialogue have clearly shown that the world has built a strong foundation for climate action under the Paris Agreement”, said Ms. Espinosa.

Many developed countries pledged financial support to enable developing countries to act. This is especially important for the replenishment of the Green Climate Fund.

Countries have sent significant positive signals towards GCF’s first formal replenishment, with Germany and Norway announcing that they would double their contributions.

The engagement of multilateral development banks (MDBs), international organisations, businesses, investors and civil society at COP24 helped to build the political will towards the outcome in Katowice.

Many made key announcements, that were critical to build momentum. These include:
• None The World Bank’s pledge of $200 billion in climate action funding for the period 2021-2025;
• None The MDBs announcement to align their activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement;
• None The commitment by fifteen international organizations to make their operations climate neutral;
• None The announcement by the C40 Cities coalition, which includes cities across the globe, to work with the IPCC to identify how the Global Warming of 1.5C report can apply to cities’ climate actions.

Many more announcements were made and inspiring examples of climate action showcased at the Global Climate Action High-level events (For more information, see here).

The next United Nations Climate Change Conference will take place in Chile and consultations will provide clarity on the city and exact date of the conference in due course.

With 197 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement. The main aim of the Paris Agreement is to keep a global average temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The UNFCCC is also the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The ultimate objective of all agreements under the UNFCCC is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, in a time frame which allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development.

For more information please contact:

Follow UNFCCC on Twitter: @UNFCCC| español: @CMNUCC| | Francais: @CCNUCC | Deutsch: @UNKlima,

 UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa on Twitter: @PEspinosaC

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 UNFCCC on Instagram: @UNFCCC </s> On Saturday, officials from nearly 200 countries agreed to a set of guidelines to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland.

Here’s what you need to know about the agreement, which is being called the Katowice Climate Package.

What exactly is it?

The new agreement lays out specific measures to fulfil the promises of the Paris Agreement. The terms of the agreement were hotly debated over several days by member countries before being agreed upon.

The UN celebrated the Katowice Climate Package as the beginning of a “new era of global climate change action,” saying it will promote international cooperation on climate change, boost transparency among countries and benefit people from all walks of life.

The new measures will be implemented in 2020.

What was agreed to?

The main achievements of the Katowice Climate Package include an agreement on how to report greenhouse gas emissions and efforts to reduce to them as well as a commitment from wealthy countries to provide financial assistance to poorer countries to help them in cutting emissions, prepare for things such as rising sea levels and pay for damages already caused by climate change.

Officials from 196 countries have agreed to the Katowice Climate Package. Representing every corner of the globe, they include everyone from the world’s worst greenhouse gas emitters, such as China and the United States, to middling powers like Canada to tiny Pacific island nations like Tuvalu.

Wait, the U.S. is onboard?

Although U.S. President Donald Trump has questioned the existence of climate change, pulled his country out of the Paris Agreement and promoted the use of coal, the U.S. not only agreed to the Katowice Climate Package but was also one of the biggest champions of creating transparency rules to ensure that no country will be able to shirk their emission-cutting commitments.

Who represented Canada at the conference?

Canada was primarily represented by Environment Minister Catherine McKenna. “Global problems require global solutions,” McKenna tweeted after the Katowice Climate Package had been finalized.

“And somewhat unbelievably, countries around the world came together at (the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference) and stepped up. These days that isn't always the case. It should be celebrated and replicated!”

Were there any sticking points?

Many countries differed sharply in their views of how to make a functioning carbon credit market, which would aim to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions while raising money to help limit global warming. Talks on how to create an emissions trading system will be resumed at the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Chile.

What else was left out?

Large oil exporters like the U.S., Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait successfully blocked an attempt to include language about weaning the world off fossil fuels in the agreement. The final text of the agreement also lacks specific 2030 greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. </s> Around 65,000 people braved rain and wind to take part in the "Claim the Climate" demonstration through central Brussels on Sunday, Belgian police said.

The climate rally, which organizers called the biggest in Belgium's history, followed similar weekend marches in Berlin and Cologne.

Holding banners with slogans including "There is no planet B" and "Climate First, Politics Second," the protesters urged delegates meeting at the COP24 climate conference in Katowice, Poland, to set more ambitious targets to limit carbon emissions.

Read more: Opinion: The brave optimism at COP24

Negotiators from nearly 200 countries are attending the two-week long United Nations summit, which aims to flesh out a rule book for implementing the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

The pact set the goal of limiting global warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Scientists say sticking to that target will involve a dramatic shift away from fossil fuels such as coal. The burning of coal, oil and natural gas emits a large share of greenhouse gases causing climate change.

Read more: Crunch time for the climate at the COP24 global warming conference

Not far from the COP24 venue in Katowice, Polish anti-coal campaigners held their own, smaller protest on Sunday.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Slovakia, a court ordered 12 Greenpeace activists to be held in pre-trial detention after they displayed protest banners on a tower at a coal mine in the western town of Novaky.

The protesters, who are from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Finland and Belgium, could face prison terms of up to five years if convicted, Greenpeace said.

Read more: Africans expect real action on climate change at COP24

Every evening, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here. </s> KATOWICE, Poland (Reuters) - Nearly 200 countries overcame political divisions late on Saturday to agree on rules for implementing a landmark global climate deal, but critics say it is not ambitious enough to prevent the dangerous effects of global warming.

After two weeks of talks in the Polish city of Katowice, nations finally reached consensus on a more detailed framework for the 2015 Paris Agreement, which aims to limit a rise in average world temperatures to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

“It is not easy to find agreement on a deal so specific and technical. Through this package you have made a thousand little steps forward together. You can feel proud,” Polish president of the talks Michal Kurtyka told delegates.

After he struck the gavel to signal agreement had been reached, ministers joined him on the stage, hugging and laughing in signs of relief after the marathon talks.

Before the talks started, many expected the deal would not be as robust as needed. The unity which underpinned the Paris talks has fragmented, and U.S. President Donald Trump intends to pull his country - one of the world’s biggest emitters - out of the pact.

Related Coverage Climate talks pass baton in race to stop global warming

At the 11th hour, ministers managed to break a deadlock between Brazil and other countries over the accounting rules for the monitoring of carbon credits, deferring the bulk of that discussion to next year, but missing an opportunity to send a signal to businesses to speed up their actions.

Still, exhausted ministers managed to bridge a series of divides to produce a 156-page rulebook - which is broken down into themes such as how countries will report and monitor their national pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions and update their emissions plans.

Not everyone is happy with everything, but the process is still on track and it is something to build on, several ministers said.

“While some rulebook elements still need to be fleshed out, it is a foundation for strengthening the Paris Agreement and could help facilitate U.S. re-entry into the Paris Agreement by a future presidential administration,” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

COP24 President Michal Kurtyka is greeted after adopting the final agreement during a closing session of the COP24 U.N. Climate Change Conference 2018 in Katowice, Poland, December 15, 2018. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

AMBITION, AMBITION, AMBITION

Some countries and green groups criticized the outcome for failing to urge increased ambitions on emissions cuts sufficiently to curb rising temperatures. Poorer nations vulnerable to climate change also wanted more clarity on how an already agreed $100 billion a year of climate finance by 2020 will be provided and on efforts to build on that amount further from the end of the decade.

A statement by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who left the talks on Thursday, stressed the need for more work.

“From now on, my five priorities will be: ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition and ambition,” it said.

“And ambition must guide all member states as they prepare their (emissions cut plans) for 2020 to reverse the present trend in which climate change is still running faster than us.”

A U.N.-commissioned report by the IPCC in October warned that keeping the Earth’s temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C would need “unprecedented changes” in every aspect of society.

Last week, Saudi Arabia, the Unites States, Russia and Kuwait refused to use the word “welcome” in association with the findings of the report.

Slideshow (8 Images)

The decision text now merely expresses gratitude for the work on the report, welcomes its timely completion and invites parties to use the information in it.

For many low-lying states and islands at risk from rising sea levels, this is not strong enough but had to be accepted grudgingly in exchange for other trade-offs.

During the two weeks of talks in Katowice - in the mining region of Silesia, a focus on the fossil fuel industry provided an unwelcome distraction for some countries and environmental groups which want to focus on cleaner energy.

The conference itself has been hosted by coal-reliant Poland, which has sought to protect its mining industry. The U.S. administration’s only event in Katowice was seen as trying to rebrand coal as a potentially clean energy source. </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Sir David Attenborough addressing the climate change conference in Poland.

The naturalist Sir David Attenborough has said climate change is humanity's greatest threat in thousands of years.

The broadcaster said it could lead to the collapse of civilisations and the extinction of "much of the natural world".

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Katowice, Poland.

The meeting is the most critical on climate change since the 2015 Paris agreement.

Sir David said: "Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years. Climate change.

"If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon."

The naturalist is taking up the "People's Seat" at the conference, called COP24. He is supposed to act as a link between the public and policy-makers at the meeting.

"The world's people have spoken. Their message is clear. Time is running out. They want you, the decision-makers, to act now," he said.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General, said climate change was already "a matter of life and death" for many countries.

He explained that the world is "nowhere near where it needs to be" on the transition to a low-carbon economy.

But the UN Secretary-General said the conference was an effort to "right the ship" and he would convene a climate summit next year to discuss next steps.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has announced $200bn in funding over five years to support countries taking action against climate change.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Climate activist: 'It's high time that Poland phased out coal'

What's so different about this meeting?

This Conference of the Parties (COP) is the first to be held since the landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C came out in October.

The IPCC stated that to keep to the 1.5C goal, governments would have to slash emissions of greenhouse gases by 45% by 2030.

But a recent study showed that CO2 emissions are on the rise again after stalling for four years.

In an unprecedented move, four former UN climate talks presidents issued a statement on Sunday, calling for urgent action.

They say "decisive action in the next two years will be crucial".

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Climate change: How 1.5C could change the world

Meanwhile, the gap between what countries say they are doing and what needs to be done has never been wider.

So urgent is the task that some negotiators began their meetings on Sunday, a day before the official start.

Will global leaders be attending?

Yes, some 29 heads of state and government are due to give statements at the opening of the meeting.

The number is way down on the stellar cast that turned up in Paris in 2015, which perhaps indicates that many are seeing this as more a technical stage on the road to tackling climate change than a big bang moment.

But for the likes of China and the EU, the meeting is critical. They will want to show that international co-operation can still work even in the age of President Trump.

How years compare with the 20th Century average 2019 is on course to be in the top three warmest years 10 warmest years 10 coldest years 20th Century average Hotter Colder Months J F M A M J J A S O N D Source: NOAA Replay

So will cutting carbon be the main focus of the meeting?

Rather than spending all their time working on how to increase ambitions to cut carbon, conference delegates are likely to focus on trying to finalise the technical rules of how the Paris agreement will work.

Image copyright FABRICE COFFRINI Image caption A collage of children's drawing about climate change laid out on a glacier in Switzerland

While the agreement was ratified in record time by more than 180 countries in 2016, it doesn't become operational until 2020.

Before then, delegates must sort out common rules on measuring, reporting and verifying (checking to avoid the misreporting of) greenhouse gas emissions, and on how climate finance is going to be provided.

"The rulebook is the thing that will absorb most of the negotiators' capacity at this year's COP," said Camilla Born, from the climate change think tank, E3G.

"It's no surprise, as agreeing the Paris rules is both technically and politically a complicated task - but it is worth it!"

Right now, that rule book runs to several hundred pages with thousands of brackets, indicating areas of dispute.

But what about limiting emissions?

Under the Paris agreement, each country decides for itself the actions it will take when it comes to cutting carbon. Some observers believe that the changed mood and the urgency of the science will prompt action.

"We are hoping that at COP24, countries will make declarations of how they will raise their ambitions by 2020. This is a very important moment," said Fernanda Carvalho with campaign group WWF.

"Two years is a short time span for that to happen. Countries need to act fast."

Why is the UN process slow-moving?

There is much frustration with the snail-like pace, especially among some campaigners who feel that the scale of the threat posed by rising temperatures hasn't been fully grasped by politicians.

Image copyright HANNA FRANZEN Image caption Greta Thunberg, who has refused to go to school in Sweden in protest over climate change, will be attending COP24

"Governments across the world have completely failed to protect their citizens," said a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, the social movement that pushes for radical change on climate issues.

"Instead, they have pursued quick profit and big business. We need this to change. At COP24, we want to ensure that the focus is not just on getting the technical Paris rulebook as robust as possible, but also that governments do not lose sight of the bigger picture."

Others involved in the UN process say that real progress is being made in tackling one of the most complex problems ever faced by the world.

"We have a $300bn renewable energy economy at work today - it's not peanuts; it's an energy revolution that has unfolded on the back of, yes, a sometimes sticky climate negotiation process," said Achim Steiner, who heads the United Nations Development Programme.

How much of a role will money play in making progress in Poland?

Many developing countries see progress on issues around finance to be critical to moving forward. They have been promised $100bn every year from 2020 as part of the Paris agreement.

Some are sceptical about what they see as foot-dragging and obfuscation by richer countries when it comes to handing over the cash. Negotiators say that moving forward on finance is the lynchpin of progress in this meeting.

"A key finding of the recent IPCC report, and one that has often been overlooked, is that without a dramatic increase in the provision of climate finance, the possibility of limiting warming to 2C (to say nothing of the safer 1.5C goal) will irretrievably slip away," said Amjad Abdulla, chief negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States.

Are there concerns the meeting is in a country reliant on coal?

Yes - among government negotiators and observers alike. The fact that the conference is taking place in a strong coal region, in a city that is home to the biggest coal company in the EU, is troubling to many.

The Polish government says that it is sticking with the fuel, and has announced that it is planning to invest next year in the construction of a new coal mine in Silesia.

This bullish approach has drawn condemnation from some.

"Unfortunately, this week's announcement by the [meeting's] Polish presidency that it will include coal companies as sponsors of the COP sends a very worrisome signal before the conference even begins," said Sébastien Duyck, a senior attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law.

Will President Trump and the US feature at all?

Although the US has withdrawn from the Paris agreement, it cannot leave until 2020, so its negotiators have been taking part in meetings and have not obstructed the process. America is expected to participate in COP24.

However, given the President's well known love of coal, it has been reported that the White House will once again organise a side event promoting fossil fuels. A similar event at the last COP provoked outrage from many delegates.

UN climate conference 03 Dec- 14 Dec 2018

The summit comes three years after the 2015 Paris accord on climate change, at which all countries agreed a plan to limit carbon emissions. Now is the moment governments must start deciding what to do to make sure that plan is put into effect.
The 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change convenes in Katowice, Poland.