COP25 closing comments: A small victory, with an even bigger fight ahead

Sunday 15 December, Madrid, Spain: COP25 negotiations are finally over in Madrid, after going into extra time. 

Sara Shaw, climate justice and energy coordinator for Friends of the Earth International, commented: 

“The good news for Southern communities, Indigenous Peoples and for the climate is that there is no deal on dodgy carbon trading out of Madrid. This is despite a last minute attempt by developed countries and a few big developing countries to push through a destructive deal that would have flooded the system with old carbon credits and opened the door to huge new trading mechanisms. This is a small victory, with an even bigger fight ahead into COP26 next year.

The bad news is virtually everything else – there is no new finance for loss and damage for developing countries hit hard by climate change, nor is there any agreed provision of long term climate finance.”

On loss and damage – for countries already hit by climate change – there is no new climate finance,  just the establishment of an expert group with no deadline to feed back and consensus to establish the ‘Santiago Network’. There is no agreement on governance of the Warsaw International Mechanism. US attempts to add text removing liability have gone, for now.

Shaw continued:

“On the streets of Chile and Madrid we saw an explosion of people power, with thousands marching for climate justice. During COP25, hundreds of us held peaceful action inside to express our frustration with the lack of action. This was aggressively shut down and we were thrown out of the building. But it’s big polluters who should be thrown out, not the people.

We will continue to stand with with Indigenous Peoples, peasants, fisherfolks, women and local communities whose lives are already being devastated by climate change and who are losing hope of justice from the international climate talks.”

Contact: madeleine[at]foei.org

Image: © Victor Barro/Amigos de la Tierra