If possible, choose a hotel that operates in an environmentally responsible manner (e.g. sustainable energy management and reuse of towels and linens).

To achieve the overall goal of a climate-neutral event (which has become standard practice for COPs), the amount of GHG emissions generated in connection with the sessions will be reduced to the extent possible. Yet, certain emissions (such as those associated with travel, which is responsible for the lion’s share of the overall footprint) remain unavoidable and will therefore be offset.

In close coordination with the UNFCCC secretariat, the Polish Environment Ministry will calculate GHG emissions associated with the Conference, including those related to long-distance travel of all registered participants, in accordance with robust international standards and offset them through CO₂ removals by forest ecosystems, i.e. through afforestation measures and the implementation of a Polish forest carbon farm pilot project.

The climate neutrality of the Conference will be documented by means of a carbon footprint report.

Climate Neutral Now

You can make your travel (and the rest of your life!) climate-neutral and be recognized for it. It’s easy:

• UNFCCC’s Climate Neutral Now initiative offers all conference participants the possibility to offset the unavoidable GHG emissions generated by their personal activities not related to COP 24, such as those related to their travel to and from Bonn and to their daily life, using certified emission reduction credits (CERs) from Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects (which foster environmentally friendly projects in developing countries and contribute to the sustainable development in the host country).
• Visit our platform to browse through the projects that sell their credits. You can filter them by region, country, co-benefits or price – for example. Your purchase will fund an array of projects ranging from wind power projects to efficient bus transit systems, or projects that replace harmful cook stoves with healthy, cleaner-burning ones. It will be up to you to choose what to invest in to compensate your emissions. To learn more about this project, check the facts in this flyer.
• CO₂ emissions generated by air travel can be calculated using ICAO's official calculator. To calculate your personal life’s emissions, you can use the calculator available here.

Participants who compensate their emissions through the platform will automatically receive a personalized certificate from the UN Climate Change Secretariat to attest to their climate action, as well as – at the time of registration – a Climate Neutral Now lanyard.

Go Climate Neutral Now!

To reduce the amount of GHG emissions generated in connection with the Conference, and with a view to further reducing paper usage and wastage, participants are asked to refrain from distributing any printed material, such as publications and information related to side events and exhibits, other meetings or future conferences. The UNFCCC secretariat strongly encourages the electronic dissemination of information.

In this context, please note that daily updates on the negotiations, such as the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, ECO and Third World Network, will be disseminated in electronic form only. To facilitate access, as per past practice the secretariat will include web links to these updates in the Daily Programme. Alternatively, updates may be accessed electronically by scanning the QR code on display throughout the conference venue. The publishing organizations may also wish to display a copy with QR codes at their exhibit stands.

Parties and observers may display visual electronic materials (videos, slideshows, images etc.) to promote their climate action on two screens at the Climate Change Resources Corner. Posters promoting official side events and exhibits may be displayed exclusively on the poster boards at the side events and exhibits area of the conference venue.

The selection criteria of official side events and exhibits routinely include the commitment of side event organizers and exhibitors to disseminate all documentation in electronic form only. Side event organizers and exhibitors are requested to upload electronic files on the UNFCCC website, post QR codes on their exhibit booths and in side event rooms and promote their websites and mobile applications, if any. The secretariat will take note of the amount of printed materials disseminated at each side event and take this into consideration as a selection criterion for side event applications for future sessions.

Side event schedules will be announced through the UNFCCC Information for Participants webpage and the free UNFCCC mobile application “Negotiator”. Information on other events may also be posted on the UNFCCC website.

It is planned to broadcast all official side events live through Google Hangouts on Air and YouTube. Links to the recordings of the broadcasts will be made available on the UNFCCC website.

The Climate Change Studio provides an additional option for delegates to disseminate information, namely in the form of interviews that will be broadcast and archived on the UNFCCC website.

The Polish Environment Ministry is registered in the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) and fulfils high standards of environmental protection in all operational activities. EMAS is a voluntary EU environmental management system based on regulation 1221/2009.

As an EMAS-registered entity, the Ministry takes care of the environmental aspects of international events, such as COP 24. EMAS requirements support the implementation of resource and energy efficiency solutions and the evaluation of environmental performance. EMAS is also a transparent tool for environmental reporting and helps to maintain an effective dialogue with stakeholders.

Participants are requested to turn off room lights and ventilation as well as ICT equipment when not in use, enabling energy-saving features.

Adequate catering services are available at the conference venue on a commercial basis, including vegetarian and vegan options.

This CO₂ calculator kindly provided by the City of Frankfurt, Germany, allows users to compare the carbon footprint of various ingredients and exemplary menus in a playful way.

To limit the use of individual disposable plastic bottles and paper cups, water dispensers available throughout the conference venue may be used with reusable bottles that will be distributed to all registered participants as part of a welcome package free of charge at the Information Desk.

If you lose your reusable bottle, you may wish to buy a drink in a reusable bottle on site or at a nearby supermarket and refill that bottle with the water available through dispensers.

The Polish Environment Ministry has provided the following information on the share of vegetarian and vegan food as a percentage of all food on offer at COP 24:

More information is available here.

The cooperation within the context of COP 23 held in 2017 with the Center for a Livable Future (CLF) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School for Public Health is thankfully acknowledged. Since 1996 the CLF has been addressing some of the most pressing issues in the food system while advancing public health and protecting the environment. As an interdisciplinary academic centre, the CLF is a leader in public health research, education, policy and advocacy that is dedicated to building a healthier, more equitable and more resilient food system.

Global food waste and loss

The carbon footprint of food

Individual transportation arrangements, such as rental of cars or vans, are strongly discouraged. Individual local transportation contributes to higher GHG emissions, air pollution, resource use, land use for roads and parking, and traffic congestion with the resulting aggregate loss of productive time and increased stress levels of all affected. During peak hours, individual traffic hardly brings any reduction of commuting times – on the contrary it may lead to additional delays.

Instead, use of public transportation, which is free of charge within Katowice and the surrounding areas for all registered participants during the Conference, is highly recommended. The conference venue is easily accessible via public transportation.

In line with the objectives of the UNFCCC Paperlight initiative, participants are encouraged to rely on digital versions of official documents which may be downloaded from the UNFCCC website. Staff at the Documentation Services Counter will help participants to locate and access documents online via screens at the Counter, computers provided at computer centres or participants’ own laptops, tablet computers or other handheld devices. Participants also have the option to request essential hardcopies of official documents at the Counter.

The Daily Programme for the Conference will continue to be made available in electronic form only. A PDF version will be posted each morning on the corresponding website.

Participants are encouraged to print and photocopy only what is absolutely necessary prior to and during the sessions and on both sides of the paper, keeping the font size to a legible minimum. To further limit the use of paper, the number of pages for printing in a single session and the number of sessions available to any given user at the computer centres will be limited, with double-sided printing as the default option. Paper that has print on one side only should be reused.

The “Canon Green Label Style” paper used for the Conference is bleached chlorine-free with natural whiteness obtained without using optical whitening agents. This eco-friendly paper is made from 100% chlorine-free cellulose pulp. Whitening is gradual and utilizes oxygen.

This call by the UN Climate Change Secretariat invites non-Party stakeholders from the private sector and other parts of civil society to join forces in supporting the organization of a sustainable conference.

To reduce the climate footprint associated with the shipping of goods in relation to the Conference, as per past practice all shipments processed through the official COP warehouse will be subject to a maximum allowance of a cumulative total weight of 150 kg per Party and observer organization. Parties or observer organizations setting up "areas" within delegation spaces on a commercial basis will be permitted an extra allowance of 50 kg per "area".

In this context, an "area" is defined as a clearly defined and delimited space, incorporated as such in the secretariat’s space allocation scheme and regardless of its size, where Parties and observer organizations showcase their achievements, products and services pertaining to climate change.

Please keep the original packaging of your shipments in good condition for reuse when sending back leftover materials at the end of the Conference.

Information and communications technology offers a variety of virtual participation options which help to reduce the need for physical participation in situ for several groups of participants. More information on available options may be found here.

Every effort should be made to avoid the generation of waste in the first place. Participants are asked to actively participate in the waste management initiative and support waste avoidance and waste separation as much as possible.

All areas of the conference venue will feature strict separation of any unavoidable waste to enable the highest possible quality of recycling:

Copyright: UNFCCC/ Bernardo Buechner

In addition to the fractions shown above, relevant areas of the conference venue will be equipped with containers for special waste, e.g. batteries, light bulbs and small household appliances.

Waste will be processed according to the current Polish regulations.

Use of disposable individual packaging for transporting goods will be minimized, with a preference for reusable large-scale packaging. Packaging of computer equipment delivered for the Conference will be reused afterwards. Most of the packaging for catering products will be environmentally friendly (e.g. compostable).

By filling your own reusable bottles at water dispensers available throughout the conference venue, use of paper cups and disposable water bottles can be significantly reduced.

To further reduce the amount of waste produced, the materials used for the setup of the conference venue, including the equipment and decoration of spaces on a commercial basis such as offices and pavilions, will be reusable to the extent possible.

Backdrops, platforms and wall elements will be made from reusable materials. The carpet used in the conference venue and the fabrics used in conference halls will also be reused.

Some of the furniture will be made from waste and biodegradable materials. The laminated boards used for constructing walls will be recycled, while the signage banners can be reused after the event, for instance by upcycling them into bags.

The UNFCCC Pavilion is equipped with recycled cardboard furniture.

To assist participants and staff with limited mobility, wheelchairs will be made available for use on the site of the Conference.

Making COP 24 sustainable - UN Climate Change News

COP 24: Green, gender focus, as UN's crucial climate change conference gets underway - UN News

COP 24 environmentally friendly - Environment Ministry of the Republic of Poland

How COP 24 plans to make itself sustainable - DownToEarth

Haciendo COP 24 sostenible - Ahorro Energético (Spanish)

And now, negotiating the shift to zero emissions in thirty years - L'Echo (French)

Climate-neutral climate conference in Katowice, Poland - Green Agenda (Greek)

At #COP 24, delegates are encouraged to get their daily updates digitally to reduce paper waste - UNFCCC Instagram