Marathon international climate talks in Spain have ended with negotiators postponing a key decision on global carbon markets.
This was despite organisers adding two more days to the 12 days of scheduled talks in Madrid.
In the end, delegates from almost 200 nations endorsed a declaration to help poor countries that are suffering the effects of climate change, although they did not allocate any new funds to do so.
The final declaration called on the “urgent need” to cut greenhouse gases in line with the goals of the landmark 2015 Paris climate change accord.
That fell far short of promising to enhance countries’ pledges to cut greenhouse gases next year, which developing countries and environmentalists had lobbied the delegates to achieve….
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said he was “disappointed” by the meeting’s outcome.
“The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation and finance to tackle the climate crisis,” he said.
“We must not give up and I will not give up.”
“It’s sad that we couldn’t reach a final agreement” on carbon markets, admitted the climate summit’s chairwoman, Carolina Schmidt, Chile’s environment minister.
“We were on the verge,” she said, adding the goal was to establish markets that are “robust and environmentally sustainable”.
The carbon market failure did not upset everyone., with some saying no deal on how to govern the exchange of carbon credits was better than a weak one that could undermine a dozen or so existing regional carbon mechanisms.