Editorial | Time running out as nations try to agree on climate pledges
- With failure to reach consensus on key steps in Madrid, all eyes turn to talks in Glasgow next year and whether there will be a breakthrough or just more disappointment
Nearly 200 countries have signed up to the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and mitigate a rise in sea levels. It is the world’s response to a potential humanitarian catastrophe that would threaten peace and stability. You would not know it from the lack of urgency and unity at the latest United Nations climate talks that have just ended in Madrid.
After two weeks of negotiations they broke up without agreement on key steps on the way forward under the Paris accord – new rules for a carbon trading market and trading emissions credits. Instead, delegates pinned their hopes on reaching a final deal at the climate summit in Glasgow next November.
It is the second year in a row that countries have failed to agree on carbon market rules. Negotiations followed a familiar pattern, with emerging and developed economies disputing responsibility for cutting emissions, developing countries accusing rich countries of not offering enough financial support, and nations most vulnerable to climate change being caught in the middle.
It remains uncertain whether a breakthrough will come next year. After all, the agreement depends on consensus between countries with widely divergent priorities and many details remain to be settled between them in future summits like the one that has just flopped. Moreover the US is in the process of withdrawing from the agreement under the sceptical leadership of President Donald Trump, which does nothing for multilateral consensus.
A lot now depends on whether China, wrestling with structural reform amid downward pressure on economic growth, can be convinced to go along with more ambitious climate plans next year.