UN climate summit Madrid
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The conclusion of the UN climate conference in Madrid is still being delayed. The participating countries have not yet been able to agree on a joint final statement - the draft presented by the Chilean summit presidency in the morning meets with massive rejection.
Representatives of various environmental and development organizations are now warning that the conference will fail completely.
According to the NGO representatives, the results so far are not nearly satisfactory in any of the central negotiation topics.
Apart from the fact that there is no commitment to an increase in climate protection efforts, the currently proposed design of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement on market mechanisms would undermine the Paris Agreement. The United States and Brazil, in particular, and Japan had prevailed on this issue, Greenpeace chief Jennifer Morgan criticized.
- The current decision texts are "completely unacceptable" and "a fraud against people all over the world," said Morgan in Madrid on Saturday. The Chilean presidency of the World Climate Conference had the task of "protecting the Paris climate agreement and not allowing it to be torn apart by cynicism and greed". Instead, Chile "listened to the polluters and not the people," criticized Morgan.
- The head of the Power Shift Africa initiative, Mohamed Ado, described the decision texts as "catastrophic" - "the worst I've ever seen". The formulations it contains throw the world back years instead of responding to the challenges of climate change.
"If I ever said: 'The governments have screwed it up', I would say in Madrid today: The governments have screwed it up," complained Ado. People all over the world should now "get up to save the planet".
- Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that it would be "unjust and immoral" if the current texts were adopted. After all, there is no call to step up national climate protection efforts. Meyer demanded that the large greenhouse gas emitters and rich countries should finally respond to the "clear call of youth, indigenous peoples and countries at risk of climate all over the world".
- Harjeet Singh from the aid organization Action Aid accused the EU of having supported the USA with Canada and Australia in blocking climate aid for developing countries. "Lots of licorice" can be heard from the European Union, but in fact they are no better than the United States in terms of climate finance.
- Bread for the World climate officer, Sabine Minninger, said she was "stunned how to fall behind" given the state of negotiations in Madrid.
The German Christoph Bals, observer of the summit for the environmental protection organization Germanwatch, wrote on Twitter that a draft text he had consulted on market mechanisms by the Chilean presidency was "catastrophic".
Catastrophic #Market Mechanisms text presented by the Chilean # COP25 Presidency. Now something really has to happen - otherwise it is better not to graduate this year and continue to negotiate in Glasgow. @Germanwatch @sachkarsten
- christoph bals (@christophbals) December 14, 2019To put pressure in Madrid, Germany and several other countries have jointly called for minimum standards for international trade in climate protection credits. Countries particularly at risk from the consequences of climate change, such as the South Pacific island state of Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands, were also included. The list was led by Costa Rica, where the group first met before this year's climate summit.
Among other things, it was said that a trade in pollution rights must protect the environment and really lead to a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. The countries are also calling for a ban on continuing to use old credits from before the Paris climate agreement. Among other things, this required Brazil.
In order to emphasize their demands, both the federal government and several European governments made their points public.
Countries such as Brazil and Australia insist that pollution rights acquired under the Kyoto Protocol continue to apply under the Paris Agreement. Regulations are also being struggled to avoid double counting of climate protection efforts and to establish social and human rights standards for the projects covered by Article 6. Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) had not ruled out a complete failure of the Madrid summit on Friday morning.
Setting the rules for international cooperation is one of the major tasks of this year's negotiations. The aim of trading is to give countries the opportunity to finance measures to reduce CO2 emissions abroad and to offset the saved greenhouse gases themselves. For example, a country like Germany could finance a solar power plant in a developing or emerging country to reduce the use of fossil fuels and have these emissions savings offset against its NDC account.
Conversely, countries that exceed their goals can sell credits. That was actually already on the agenda at the last climate summit in Poland, but because there was no agreement, the negotiations were postponed. This time, too, the official time frame has already been exceeded. Actually, it should have finished on Friday at 6 p.m.
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