Opinion | The only way to kick the world into action is for politicians to see how climate change destroys lives in their own constituencies

Last week, Japan’s Kanji Proficiency Society revealed its “Word of the Year”, based on a nationwide annual poll organised since 1995. The word was “sa i”, which means “disaster” – chosen for the second time in 24 years.

While it was chosen after unprecedented heat, floods and typhoon damage across Japan in 2018, the word was tailor-made for the 25,000 scientists, officials and environmental campaigners gathered for the COP24 global climate conference in Katowice in Poland, who dispersed on Sunday after two fractious weeks of meagre progress on how to tackle the world’s climate emergency.

Michal Kustyka, the Polish official presiding over the meeting, sought to provide comfort: “Every single step forward is a big achievement. You have made 1,000 little steps forward together.” But others were more blunt: “In the climate emergency we are in, slow success is no success.”

The choice of the venue was fascinating. The COP24 conference centre is on the site of a coal waste dump; discussions took place in the shadow of smokestacks and coal plumes from the Wujek coal mine three kilometres away at the heart of Poland’s Silesian coal deposits. Organisers explained that the aim was to “showcase a city and region in need of transition away from its lifeblood”.

As attendees discussed the urgent need to eliminate fossil fuels – coal the first among them – by 2050, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda was defensive: “We have coal deposits that will last for 200 years. It would be hard to expect us to give up on it totally.” Poland today generates 80 per cent of its energy from coal, while China generates 60 per cent, and the United States 30 per cent.