A marathon UN summit yesterday wrapped up with little to show, squeezing hard-earned compromises from countries over a global warming battle plan that fell well short of what science says is needed to tackle the climate crisis.
The COP25 deal “expresses the urgent need” for new carbon cutting commitments to close the gap between current emissions and the Paris treaty goal of capping global temperature rise at below 2°C, host country Spain said in a statement.
“Today the citizens of the world are asking for us to move ahead faster and better, in financing, adaptation, mitigation,” Carolina Schmidt, Chilean minister of the environment and COP25 president, told the closing plenary.
Photo: Reuters
Following a year of deadly extreme weather and weekly strikes by millions of young people demanding action, negotiations in Madrid were under pressure to send a clear signal that governments were willing to double down.
The summit — moved at the last minute from Chile due to unrest — at times teetered on the brink of collapse as rich polluters, emerging powerhouses and climate-vulnerable nations groped for common ground in the face of competing national interests.
“Based on the adopted text, there is a glimmer of hope that the heart of the Paris Agreement is still beating, but its pulse is very weak,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift, referring to the treaty inked in the French capital.
Negotiators from nearly 200 nations came to Spain’s capital with the aim of finalizing the rulebook for the 2015 agreement.
With the accord set to become operational next year, it had been hoped COP25 would show the world that governments would be moved by protests, irrefutable science, and deadly storms and wildfires that marked this year to redouble their efforts.
Yet greater ambition — how far each country is willing to slash carbon emissions or assist less wealthy peers to do likewise — has largely failed to materialize. Veteran observers of UN climate talks were stunned by the state of play.
“Never have I seen such a disconnect between what the science requires and what the climate negotiations are delivering in terms of meaningful action,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a 28-year veteran of the climate process.
“Most of the world’s biggest emitting countries are missing in action and resisting calls to raise their ambition,” Meyer said.
The push for a strengthening of voluntary carbon cutting plans is led by small-island and least-developed states, along with the EU.
These have called out nations they see as blocking consensus for all countries to step up, notably the US, Australia and Saudi Arabia.
China and India, the world’s No. 1 and No. 4 carbon emitters respectively, made it clear they see no need to improve on their emissions reduction plans, which run to 2030.
They chose instead to emphasize the historical responsibility of rich nations to lead the way and provide financing to poor countries.
The summit was also meant to finalize a chapter on carbon markets in the Paris rulebook.
Some nations, notably Brazil and Australia, want to count carbon credits accumulated under a previous climate deal as part of their commitments under the Paris goals.
Discussions over markets ended in impasse and the issue is to be handed over to next year’s COP26 in Glasgow.
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