Coal question looms large as climate talks begin in Poland

Katowice,  Poland: Negotiators from around the world opened the United Nations' annual climate change conference on Sunday in a Polish city built around mining coal, widely seen as a main culprit behind global warming.

The COP 24 UN Climate Change Conference is taking
 place in Katowice, Poland. Negotiators from around
 the world are meeting for talks on curbing climate change. CREDIT:

Arriving for two weeks of talks on tackling climate change, conference participants cast off hats, scarves and heavy coats as they entered cavernous halls in Katowice heated by coal-fired power plants nearby.

Coal is centre-stage at the UN summit, which is taking place three years after a landmark deal in Paris set a goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius.

While the Polish government claims Katowice is in the process of transforming into a green city , power plant chimneys pumped plumes of smoke into a dull December sky and monitoring sites showed elevated levels of air pollution.

Read the story from The Age by Frank Jordans - “Coal question looms large as climate talks begin in Poland.”