“On many counts cities are more progressive than their national governments – that is for sure the case of Poland,” Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski told Energy Monitor at the COP27 UN climate summit taking place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt this week. The national hard-right Polish government has been a champion of coal power and has vetoed EU climate action in the past. Trzaskowski is from the centre-right Civic Platform party of former European Council President Donald Tusk.
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“This should be the last COP without the cities sitting at the negotiating table, because we are responsible for implementing those measures,” he said. “In times where we have war in Ukraine, where we have the energy crisis, that is where we need to be ambitious.”
Might some national governments, such as his own, not be so happy about cities having more of a voice at these UN climate negotiations? It would, after dilute the national governments’ own power at the table. “Well, some governments are worried, but many of the governments that I talk to realise that they cannot do it without us,” he said.
Climate action beyond Warsaw at COP27:
Reporter Nour Ghantous and senior writer Dave Keating are reporting from COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, on behalf of Energy Monitor and our parent company, GlobalData. They are providing the data-led analysis you have come to expect from Energy Monitor but also something new: video interviews with business leaders, policymakers and campaigners. We encourage you to return often to our Energy Monitor home page for updates from the conference. You can also sign up for our free biweekly newsletter here.
Other recent COP27 coverage includes:
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