Following the failure of Copenhagen (2009), the world is torn between fighting against climate change or adapting to it, preparing itself for all kinds of risks and consequences. Paris 2015 is the new milestone – the end of a new road map - that the international community has marked in order to try to reach an agreement on how to combat climate change. At the moment, the latest reports of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that are coming to light do not leave room for a third opportunity policy; having failed in Copenhagen, it is down to Paris 2015, lest we be left ineffectively wander towards a future filled with uncertainties, climatically speaking.
The people driving this working group proposed, based on an initial open seminar (which took place on Friday, May 9, 2014, at the Industrial School of Barcelona), to initiate a programme of interdisciplinary research and political action that, on the foundation of the best possible knowledge of the problems mentioned, would be able to develop, within about a year, a proposal for a global agreement on the drastic mitigation of CO2 emissions (greenhouse gases and GHG’s in general) that could contribute, essentially, to a positive outcome for the sake of humanity at Paris 2015.
After Paris 2015, our mission has only not been outdated but on the contrary it has been reinforced. The implementation of the Paris agreement is even more important than the Paris agreement itself, as it was conceived as a framework agreement leaving many and very important aspects to be specified and developed now and in the future.
Therefore we continue working on this path: we want to learn, and we have to keep investigating and continue trying to influence the international negotiations on climate change so that equity and climate justice are finally included in the fight against climate change.
All of this was done whilst trying to encourage the UPC community and, in general, Catalan society, to actively participate on any level (awareness, training, research, policy, etc.)
