The 23rd Conference of Parties (COP23) – the yearly session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – was inaugurated yesterday in Bonn, Germany. It will last until November 17.

As we can read on the conference website, COP23 has “one clear objective: making progress for a successful, inclusive and ambitious implementation of the Paris Agreement. This includes negotiations on the implementation guidelines for transparent climate action under the Paris Agreement, as well as showcasing cooperative climate action, including on vulnerability and resilience, from around the globe.”

As most of us know, the so-called Paris Agreement was the outcome of the COP21, which was held in 2015 in Paris. It set a milestone in the history of climate change mitigation, as it led to a global agreement aiming at limiting global warming to “well below 2°C” compared to pre-industrial levels and “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”.

However, the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), i.e. the specific objectives defined by the single countries before COP21, have been assessed to lead to a temperature increase of 2.7°C, therefore additional efforts must be made to close the gap towards (at least) 2°C.

Let’s hope that COP23 will represent a step ahead in this direction, then! In a couple of weeks I will report and discuss the results of the Conference.