Chile-Madrid round of UN sponsored climate talks entered into overtime on Saturday

The Chile-Madrid round of UN sponsored climate talks entered into overtime on Saturday. Despite working through the night on Friday, after the conference was to close, ministers and negotiators were unable to come to an agreement. Last year at the talks in Katowice, Poland, countries failed to finalise the rules for carbon markets and trading and they agreed to resolve their difference by this year’s annual meeting. However, a resolution on the carbon markets continues to elude.
On Saturday morning, the chair of the current round of talks Chile’s Environment Minister Carolina Schmidt released draft texts that encapsulated the outcome decisions of the talks. The text, however, failed to find support with most countries.

Countries objected to the lack of ambition in the text as there were no effort to call on countries to step up their efforts to address climate change. Speaking for the alliance of small island states, Belize said, “This was a COP (conference of parties) of ambition, but seems we prefer looking backward rather than forward”.

Similarly countries such as India, China, and a host of other developing countries objected to silence on the failure of industrialised countries to meet their emission targets for 2020, and the need to make up for this. India said that the lack of reference to pre-2020 actions was not acceptable. “It was agreed to and it is something that will lead to enhanced actions. The problems we are facing today not due to lack of intent but lack of implementation, and it is glaringly visible in pre2020 actions,”said India lead negotiator Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Brazil and Argentina objected to the demand by Saudia Arabia to have a focused conversation on land. The two south American countries object to the idea of a formal discussion on emissions from land.

The US, which will cease to be a signatory to the Paris Agreement in November next year, said that it would not agree to any text that called for stringent action on pre-2020 emission reduction and on providing money to developing countries. Though the US has formally applied to withdraw from the Paris Agreement but this will come into effect only next year. Tuvalu, which has continuously objected to SUS efforts to influence the agenda said that countries that are not going to be bound by the Paris Agreement should not be defining its rules.

Given the divergences, the Chilean minister asked countries to meet and resolve their differences. So far, a resolution eludes.