U.N. climate conference flops as nations deadlock on hot-button issues – GWPF predicted outcome
Even the star-studded presence of Greta Thunberg and Harrison Ford couldn’t save the U.N. Climate Change Conference.
The annual climate fest was widely panned as a failure after wrapping up Sunday with no agreement on hot-button issues such as the Green Climate Fund, an international carbon market, “common metrics” for measuring non-CO2 emissions, and reimbursement to poorer nations for “loss and damage caused by man-made climate change.”
“I am disappointed with the results of #COP25,” tweeted U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, referring to the conference’s official name, the 25th Conference of the Parties.
After two weeks, delegates from about 200 countries could only agree that there is an “urgent need” to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement, despite pressure from activists who swarmed the Madrid gathering.
“The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation & finance to tackle the climate crisis,” Mr. Guterres said. “But we must not give up, and I will not give up.”
Those tricky issues will be pushed next year to COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, but skeptics said there’s no reason to believe developed nations will adhere to a pledge to sink $100 billion into a fund to help developing countries adapt to climate change.
“The failure of COP25 to agree the thorny issue of climate finance doesn’t come as a surprise. In fact, we have been predicting this decade-old stalemate to continue,” said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Forum in London, calling it “highly unlikely that the $100 billion deadlock can be overcome.”
In a tweet, Cuban diplomat Bruno Rodriguez blamed a “lack of political will of industrialized countries. They try to put the burden on developing countries. Capitalism is unsustainable. Human species is faced with the risk of extinction.”