Longest climate talks end with compromise deal
Madrid, Sunday
A marathon UN summit wrapped up Sunday 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 temperature at below two degrees, 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 environment minister and President of COP25, told the closing plenary.
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,” said Mohamed Adow, Director of Power Shift, referring the treaty inked in the French capital.
“But its pulse is very weak.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “disappointed” by the results of the UN climate summit in Madrid, calling it a missed opportunity to tackle the global warming crisis.
“I am disappointed with the results of COP25,” Guterres said. “The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation and finance to tackle the climate crisis.”
Finalise rulebook
Negotiators from nearly 200 nations came to Spain’s capital with the aim of finalising the rulebook for the 2015 agreement, which enjoins nations to limit global temperature to below 20C.
With the accord set to become operational next year, it had been hoped COP 25 would show the world that governments would be moved by protests, irrefutable science, and deadly storms and wildfires that marked 2019 to redouble their efforts.
Exhausted delegates reached agreement on the key question of increasing the global response to curbing carbon.
All countries will need to put new climate pledges on the table by the time of the next major conference in Glasgow next year. -Agencies
