Region: Europe

Nearly 200 parliamentarians and climate experts have called for urgent and bold action to implement the Paris Agreement before it’s too late.  At a parliamentary meeting on 9 December in Krakow, Poland, during the United Nations Climate Change Conference known as COP24, they set out their vision of the measures needed to limit global warming.  The meeting was organized by the IPU and the Polish Sejm to discuss practical implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

In October 2018, Lord McConnell attended the World Investment Forum in Geneva and an IPU workshop on the SDGs, on behalf of BGIPU. The theme of the 2018 Forum was ‘Investing in Sustainable Development’, and the IPU event was titled ‘Financing the Sustainable Development Goals: How can Parliaments bridge the gap?’. His participation included the tripartite dialogue between Parliamentarians, policymakers and business leaders and he also met with international organisations and with the UK Mission to the UN in Geneva.

With catastrophic climate change threatening to hit many parts of the world in just over a decade, 149 national parliaments have adopted an emergency resolution calling for decisive action. Concluding the 139th Assembly of the IPU, the emergency item resolution, called “Climate change – Let us not cross the line”, follows the report published last week by the UN IPCC.   The 139th IPU Assembly brought together over 1500 delegates including 56 Speakers of Parliament, 52 Deputy Speakers, and over 750 MPs.