Both the scientific community and nature itself have demonstrated that climate change is real and its impacts are increasingly devastating. According to the most recent findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), humans are overwhelmingly the cause of this change; we therefore must also be the solution. But every year that we wait to find solutions translates into compounding damage to our economic, health, environmental and societal well-being. Unfortunately, reality has shown repeatedly that early scientific estimates have understated the effects of climate change.

The annual Conference of the Parties (COP) presents an opportunity for the international community to collectively discuss and address the global threat of climate change. Unfortunately, it is also a space that has increasingly garnered criticism and doubt. But that doesn’t have to be the case. As the 2015 target date for a new international agreement approaches, COP 19 can and must be used as an opportunity to strengthen the individual commitments of the Parties, and through those commitments, accelerate achievement of the emissions reductions trajectory that aligns with the recommendations of the global scientific community and aims to close the mitigation gap.

Click the link below to read the full BlueGreen Alliance Position Statement for COP 19.

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