The reactions to the climate summit: "selfish and short

UN climate summit Madrid

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The result is not a surprise, but it is a bitter disappointment from the perspective of many observers: The World Climate Summit in Madrid has largely ended without results. The final document, adopted by representatives from around 200 countries, postponed almost all important decisions for the next summit in 2020 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Many of the first reactions are devastating:

• Greenpeace sees efforts for more climate protection in a deep crisis. "This climate change conference was an attack on the heart of the Paris Agreement," said a statement from the environmental organization. It reveals all the people who have long been suffering from the consequences of the climate crisis and who called for rapid progress: "The cynical greed of the fossil industry has plunged the common, multilateral fight against the unmistakable climate crisis into its deepest crisis." In addition, the policies of US President Donald Trump and the Brazilian head of state Jair Bolsonaro have contributed to a tangible blockade.
• The WWF described the Madrid decisions as "as tired as the delegates after two negotiated nights" and stressed that the conference was "a creepy false start to 2020, the crucial year for the implementation of the Paris climate agreement". WWF climate chief Michael Schäfer said: "Now it is important that we ignite Ursula von der Leyens lunar rocket, that is, to raise the EU climate contribution significantly and let the spark jump to others." The German government should not continue to "put the brakes on" climate protection in Europe.
• The aid organization Bread for the World made the industrialized countries responsible. "It is extremely irresponsible, selfish and short-sighted to deny financial commitments to the poorest countries to deal with climate change," the organization said. "There does not seem to be an adequate level of awareness in the minds of industrialized delegations about the scale of the climate crisis they have caused and continue to wreak and the catastrophic impact on the poorest sections of the population." Without additional help, the climate crisis would become a more massive risk to life for poor sections of the population in the south of the world.
• The environmental activist Greta Thunberg , initiator of the worldwide "Fridays for Future" movement, had already shown disillusionment on Saturday. "Science is clear, but science is ignored." But that doesn't change anything about the fight she and her colleagues are fighting against the climate crisis: "Whatever happens: we will never give up. We have only just started," she wrote on Twitter.
• The aid organization Care criticized the "very vague call" in the final document: "How loud must it be demonstrated, how many warnings must science still issue, how many young people still have to express their very real fear of the future so that the major economic powers can no longer speak out deaf? "
• The radical climate protection movement Extinction Rebellion was also disappointed. "Hopes for more ambitious climate protection plans were disappointed, although scientifically proven this would be necessary," the German branch of the organization said on Twitter.