Cop25: urgent action needed to save the planet

Leaders from across the globe gathered in Madrid, only to bicker and fail to unite over the climate crisis

A penguin stands on an iceberg in Antarctica. Reuters

The longest United Nations climate talks in history ended on Sunday, in what UN secretary general Antonio Guterres described as a disappointment. World leaders, activists and scientists from 200 countries had gathered for two weeks in Madrid with the aim of uniting forces against climate change in the spirit of the 2015 Paris Agreement, when countries agreed to work towards keeping global temperature rises to less than 2°C pre-industrial levels. Instead, the Cop25 was prolonged by two days, as nations fought among themselves and failed to come up with new solutions to the climate crisis.

European countries, small island states and the world’s poorest, most exposed nations are facing the planet’s biggest carbon emitters. They include Brazil, India, China, Australia and the US, which had spearheaded global climate efforts at the Cop21 in Paris but withdrew from the Paris Agreement under US President Donald Trump’s leadership in 2017.

One of the main bones of contention of these prolonged talks was the issue of carbon markets, which many experts believe are a failed policy. Carbon markets give each country a number of carbon credits, essentially allowing holders to emit a certain level of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. These credits can later be sold to richer countries and be included in their own carbon targets. The mechanism was supposed to help poorer nations cope with the economic losses that carbon-cutting policies might entail but the way these credits are managed and counted has become an apple of discord for countries such as Brazil. Brasilia insists the Amazon forest should hold a bigger share of its emissions-cutting goals, stalling global climate talks over policy details. The Alliance of Small Island States have also accused India and China of blocking any agreement on carbon markets. Simultaneously, there must be an appreciation of the development ambitions of various countries.

A lack of cohesion and weak leadership has run the negotiations into the ground. The only agreement to come out of this year’s climate talks is that countries will put forth new climate pledges at Cop26 next year – an underwhelming achievement in view of what is at stake.

Small and vulnerable nations fear they will be the first to pay the price of a failure on environmental goals. Small island nations, for instance, are at risk of disappearing completely with rising ocean levels, and environmental changes in Africa’s Sahel region are pushing many people to become environmental migrants. But the effect of climate change is not restrained to a handful of countries, it affects us all, even if some nations are bound to fall prey to environmental catastrophe sooner than others. To fail these nations means to fail the planet.

In the words of climate expert Alden Meyer: “The planet is on fire and our window of escape is getting harder and harder to reach the longer we fail to act."

With climate change deniers gaining increasing influence at top-level ranks in certain countries, now more than ever there are fears that the strides made in Paris in 2015 will not be upheld today. If we fail to curb rising temperatures and the disastrous consequences this entails, this will have a long-term impact on us. We live on the same planet, with a limited amount of resources. The world’s biggest players must live up to their responsibility towards other more vulnerable nations, which are impacted by their activity, as well as towards their own people.