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A digital climate summit to maintain Paris Agreement ambition

Nature Climate Change volume 10, page 480 (2020)Cite this article

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To the Editor — The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the way we work, learn and interact with others. It is also changing how international politics is conducted. In early March, the European Council employed teleconferences to coordinate EU efforts to respond to the outbreak, the White House moved gatherings of the G7 online and the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted four resolutions via e-mail for the first time in history.

The UNFCCC Secretariat also embraced teleconferencing for the March and April meetings, including the 17th meeting of the Adaptation Committee and the 11th meeting of the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage. However, Parties decided to postpone larger events, like the Bonn Climate Change Conference (SB 52) and the 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow. Avoiding in-person gatherings is essential and widely welcomed, but this may be a missed opportunity to re-think the way climate diplomacy works and the role technology can play in it.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation programme under grant agreements nos. 755753 (The Politics of Climate Change Loss and Damage (CCLAD)) and 730482 (Climate forecast enabled knowledge services (CLARA)).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science & School of Public Policy, University College London, London, UK

    Elisa Calliari & Lisa Vanhala

  2. Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, Venezia, Italy

    Elisa Calliari & Jaroslav Mysiak

  3. Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venezia, Italy

    Elisa Calliari & Jaroslav Mysiak

Authors
  1. Elisa Calliari
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  2. Jaroslav Mysiak
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  3. Lisa Vanhala
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Correspondence to Elisa Calliari.

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Calliari, E., Mysiak, J. & Vanhala, L. A digital climate summit to maintain Paris Agreement ambition. Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 480 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0794-0

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