COP26 Climate Summit is a UN event, during which leaders of all the countries in the world meet to determine how to intensify global action to solve the climate crisis. One of the world’s largest legal climate conferences, Climate Law & Governance Day, was held as part of COP26 attended by representatives of the University of Silesia in Katowice. The University co-organised an expert panel “Advancing the Just Transition through Law & Science Three Years from COP24”. Over 1300 participants from all over the world took part in the event held in a hybrid format.
The session was chaired by Magdalena Stryja from the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Silesia. The coordinator of the panel was Anna Budzanowska, PhD, Plenipotentiary of the Minister of Development, Labour and Technology for the Coordination of European Funds Implementation. Agnieszka Bielska-Brodziak, PhD, DLitt, Associate Professor from the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Silesia was a speaker. Students of Individual Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Silesia also took part in the meeting.
The participants discussed the issues related to the actions and programmes implemented after the Climate Summit held in 2018 in Katowice. Drawing on Poland’s experience as the host of COP24, the expert panel attempted to present what innovations, solutions, research programmes, collaborations and judicial decisions were implemented to ensure a just transition.
The panel featured analyses and reflections on the most important questions, such as:
- what is the role of the European judiciary in environmental protection and counteracting the negative effects of climate change,
- what is the contribution of the Erasmus+ programme in the implementation of the objectives of the European Green Deal,
- is decarbonisation of the Polish energy sector a technological challenge or a utopian dream?
- is the research agenda an effective tool for fair climate and energy transformation,
- what innovative solutions and social support are being implemented for environmental protection in the context of a just transition?
Poland and Katowice, as a host of the 2018 Climate Summit, have become permanently inscribed on the global climate map by being an initiator of the Solidarity and Just Transition Declaration and by acting as the main stage on which the Katowice Climate Package (Katowice Rulebook), the first global implementation tool for the Paris Agreement, was signed.
The interdisciplinary panel of an international character touched upon a spectrum of important problems from various areas, the common denominator of which became equitable actions to prevent further negative effects of climate change.
Magdalena Stryja was also a speaker on the expert panel entitled “Courage, Contributions & Compliance by Advancing Paris Agreement Implementation”.
Climate Law & Governance Day is an international conference, which was first organised as a side event of COP11 in Montreal in 2005. The symposium aims to deepen the dialogue between climate summit delegates – representatives of governments, international organisations, and leading scientific centres. It is also a place for an exchange of ideas between lawyers, judges, economists, experts in new technologies, and young researchers interested in national and international law and efforts to protect the climate and the environment.
The conference held on 5 November 2021 in Glasgow, was organised by the University of Cambridge and the Centre for International Sustainable and Development Law.
A recap of the event is available on the Climate Law & Governance Day 2021 website.
photo by UNclimatechange | flickr