Analysis: "COP25 escaped collapse with a haircut"

“Time for action” was the motto for COP 25. Day for action, a phrase that has long been echoed in all large rooms filled with rulers. But so far, the negotiations have not shown the ability to capture the demands of the streets around the world and turn them into action.

In Paris 2015, it was considered a great victory that the agreement requires countries to improve their climate policy every five years. It would be the mechanism itself for the weak and voluntary Paris agreement to still reduce emissions. But four years later, one wonders if it was a victory. Instead, it has become a release card for many countries to wait to do something.

But next year's climate summit in Glasgow will be a party. Then finally, the countries must have understood that it is time for a change in the fundamentals of our societies - from energy supply to consumption. Then the countries should raise their climate promises in accordance with the Paris Agreement.

That was the main task at the COP25 climate meeting in Madrid, and after more than a day and a half of overtime, the decision did not land in a clear call for plans to be raised in 2020, but still there is an "urgent need" to do something about the gap between the promises of the Paris Agreement and what is actually being done.

Although many are now dissatisfied and think it would have been clearer, it was still a success for the young climate movement that it now states that countries should listen to the cry from the street of justice and that it is in a hurry.

So half a success in raising promises, but it was not unexpected that the sensitive issues of emissions trading and how poor countries should be paid for climate damage should be replaced. In the latter, there has long been an abyss between vulnerable countries and especially the United States who do not want to become a climate insurance company.

So will COP26 in Glasgow succeed? Will the countries raise their ambitions "in the spirit of the Paris Agreement for everyone to do more"? After seeing the anguish of the severely delayed negotiations in Madrid, no healthy person should invest their savings money on such a high-rider.

The dark geopolitical moods are at risk of being hooked. In times of trade wars and putting their own country first, the climate falls further down the agenda. And when decisions are to be taken unanimously, every fossil-dependent or fossil-producing country gets the right to veto. Neither China, India, Brazil, Australia, Saudi Arabia nor the United States (which is about to leave the agreement) have made any promises yet to raise ambitions. For the next climate meeting to succeed, more big players than the EU want to take the lead on climate change instead of slowing down. In Madrid, it was quiet from China, India and the US.

Perhaps the most important issue after the Madrid climate summit is not that the rules on emissions trading are being enforced, but whether the UN-led climate negotiations will at all be able to deliver a solution to the worries people around the world know about the climate crisis, and what researchers are alerting about. So far, there are no results in reduced emissions after 27 years of negotiations. Instead, emissions have increased by about 60 percent.

After several weak climate meetings with missed promises, hopes are now being raised for next year's climate negotiations. But the more air you blow into the balloon, the greater the risk that it ends with a bang and everyone goes home sad from the party.

Perhaps you should already plan to sweep the remains together? After the failure of the climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009, the climate issue stood still for a few years. Now the clock is ticking faster and faster, at least the emissions must be halved within ten years, according to the researchers, and every year counts.