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U.N. Climate Talks End With Big Polluters Blocking Stronger Action

The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said countries had “lost an important opportunity” at the meeting in Madrid.

www.nytimes.com

The talks were designed to iron out the last unresolved details of the landmark Paris climate agreement. Under that pact, agreed to in 2015, countries set their own targets and timetables to rein in emissions of planet-warming gases.

There was a push from both rich and poor countries to commit, at least on paper, to ramping up climate-action targets next year.

United Nations climate talks ended early Sunday in Madrid with big polluting countries blocking an agreement to enhance climate targets and deferring until next year a set of rules on international carbon trading.

The United States, which is planning to abandon the Paris climate agreement next year and thus may have participated in the climate negotiations for the last time, resisted an agreement on how to compensate poor countries for the economic losses they suffer from climate catastrophes, though there was a general endorsement of finding a way to help them. 

The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, offered an unusually blunt assessment of the 25th annual climate negotiations, formally known as the Conference of Parties. “I am disappointed with the results of #COP25,” he said on Twitter. “The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation & finance to tackle the climate crisis.”

Currently being projected on the Tower of London during President Trump’s visit to the UK. 

Photo: @ByDonkeys

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