Failure In Madrid As COP25 Climate Summit Ends In Disarray

Negotiations at a U.N. climate summit in Madrid broke down today as the two-week meeting ended without a crucial agreement on the global carbon market rules of the Paris Agreement.

After extending the two-week summit for an additional two days, the world’s countries agreed a text with vague pledges to enhance their Paris emissions reductions targets. But the watered-down text reflects a failure to agree on the key outcomes that were needed at the summit: setting a rulebook for the Paris Agreement and designing a global carbon market.

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Donald Trump has filed paperwork to remove the United States from the Paris Agreement, signed by his predecessor Barack Obama, next November – the earliest date the U.S. can leave. The U.S. absence has left the EU alone in trying to bring developing countries like China and India on board.

“COP25 has been mired in the politics of low ambition that seek to serve individual agendas in a way that is totally out of step with the urgent need for collective action,” said Eliot Whittington, director of the European Corporate Leaders Group, a collection of climate-ambitious CEOs.

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