• Guterres. "Let's take advantage of carbon taxes to lower them to workers"
  • COP25.Brazil, China and India hamper the final tranche of the negotiation

The time to act, as the walls and posters of the Climate Summit of Madrid say insistently, is running out without an agreement being envisaged for this Friday, when the COP25 that began last December 2 should be concluded.

After 19 hours, Andrés Landerretche, coordinator of the presidency of the COP25, has announced that negotiations will continue during the next hours, until tonight or tomorrow. "We have moderate optimism but we don't know how long it will take. We are not going to leave Ifema without a good result," Landerretche said.

The work of the so-called facilitators - those who have tried to expedite the work on the most complicated issues within the groups - has concluded, the parties have had access to the documents and a plenary session has been held in which the president of COP25 and Chilean Environment Minister Carolina Schmidt has heard the comments and allegations of member countries.

Now it is time to incorporate these changes, prepare and edit the new texts for approval, something as explained by the Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, "could last for hours." "Until tonight, at best, a plenary cannot be reached with reasonably agreed and filed decisions ." A process that, as Ribera has stressed, "is completely normal" at these summits and necessary for all voices to be heard.

According to the acting minister, "one of the most controversial aspects is how it can be guaranteed that there is no risk of double counting of global carbon markets" that should be regulated by the famous Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, whose development was a of the main tasks that the negotiators in Madrid had on the table. A matter "enormously technical and important to know that the tons of CO2 that are being computed in national contributions or that are being sold in international markets respond to a reality and not a reality told twice," said Ribera.

The obstacles

In the halls of the COP25 there is some pessimism about the final ambition that the text may have that reflects the progress of this summit in the absence of commitment from three very important countries with denial governments: the US, which has begun the procedures to get out of the Agreement of Paris, Brazil and Australia. On the other hand, besides Brazil, China and India are hindering the development of article 6.

"We will see if this COP has been able to respond more to science, and to the people who have been here asking for justice and climate action, or if it is going to let polluters dominate, " Jennifer Morgan asked at a press conference this morning, Executive Director of Greenpeace International.

"We still have countries like Australia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia that are coming to complete their agenda to destroy the Paris agreement, and to fill it so much with legal loopholes that it cannot fulfill," Morgan criticized.

Friends of the Earth already speaks of "failure of the summit" and accuses political representatives of "remaining immersed in their bubble, totally oblivious to reality." "Just when we reach the end of COP25, we see how the already insufficient Paris Agreement is empty of content, mainly due to the risk posed by carbon markets ... that will not reduce emissions, especially if the incorporation of an avalanche of emission bonds and double counting of reductions, on the one hand the country that sells and on the other the country that buys, "said Sara Shaw, coordinator of the Climate and Energy Justice program of Friends of the Tierra Internacional, in a press release.

European Green Deal

Teresa Ribera considers "extraordinary news" that the EU has taken in just one month three very important steps to strengthen its climate ambition: the European Investment Bank, which will be the world's first climate bank; the presentation of the New Green Deal in the European Commission last Wednesday with which Europe intends to mobilize 100,000 million euros for the transition to a less polluting economy and to be able to help the most disadvantaged sectors and the European Council held on Thursday in Brussels, in that 27 EU countries pledged to achieve a total commitment to achieve emissions neutrality in 2050. And this despite the fact that Poland has been left out (Czech Republic and Hungary, who were also opposed, finally agreed to approve the text) . Within six months, the European Council will revert to this issue and Warsaw will have the opportunity to get on the EU plan.

Although almost 200 countries have to agree on COP25, that the 28 EU countries adopt a joint block position was also symbolically important, as it was hoped that the message of European ambition could relaunch the negotiations and encourage other countries to show a greater commitment.

Laurence Tubiana, architect of the Paris Agreement, has also considered "the good news" the steps of the EU: "Six months ago I would not have thought it possible. It is the result of the last European elections," said Tubiana, who in this Summit does not participate directly in the negotiations.

At a press conference, the French diplomat and economist stressed that it will be next year, at the Glasgow Climate Summit, when all countries have to present their expanded commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "This year it is about maintaining the integrity of the Paris Agreement," said Tubiana, who does not want "an agreement that is not good."

"There are obstacles in governments but we see that society moves ... The message for governments is that this is already happening , why do you delay it?" Said the diplomat, who has made a positive balance of what It has happened in the four years since Paris. "We know that the fossil fuel industry will not end from morning to night," he said.

And while politicians remain involved in technical details, Fridays for Future activists have mobilized outside and inside the COP25 to demand, once again, more political ambition, especially from the rich countries. They have also demanded that the rights of indigenous populations be included in climate plans. "Strike school, week 69 Turin, Italy !, said Swedish activist Greta Thunberg on Twitter, who after staying a week in Madrid this Friday is manifested by the weather with young Italians.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • science
  • Science and Health
  • Climate Summit
  • Climate change
  • Environment

Climate Crisis Patricia Espinosa: "Mobilization in the streets helps us to activate decision making"

Climate crisis Jordan prepares for a future without water

Madrid Weather Coverage Interview: "Satellites show clear images of climate change"