At U.N. Climate Talks In Poland, CSU Delegation Steps Up

KATOWICE, POLAND– By Lars Gesing for The Colorado Independent. Shelby McClelland and Nycole Echeverria had just gotten off the plane from Denver to Katowice, Poland. The two Colorado State University graduate students had flown 16 hours to attend the annual United Nations climate pow-wow known as the Conference of Parties, or COP. Tired, they were looking for the U.S. pavilion, traditionally a prominent gathering place for Americans at these conferences.

They couldn’t find it.

Only later did they stumble upon the space, which was much smaller than in years past. The room’s diminished presence struck them as an apt metaphor for the U.S. government’s declining role in world climate affairs.

McClelland said she was “obviously” disappointed in the lack of official U.S. engagement. “But we are still in,” she said. “States like Colorado and cities are stepping up and taking on that role.”
The Trump White House did not send an official delegation to Katowice, where leaders from almost every nation are hunkering down this week and next to negotiate what’s being called the “rule book” for how to implement the Paris Agreement. That historic 2015 climate pact seeks to curb greenhouse gas emissions and halt the worst of climate change’s devastating impacts, such as rising sea levels and increasingly lethal and costly droughts and wildfires.

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Members of Colorado State University's delegation at a recent U.N. climate change conference in Katowice, Poland. (Photo courtesy of Shelby McClelland)