António Guterres, former PS prime minister and current UN secretary general, has lambasted the so-called ‘international community’ for its “lack of ambition” at COP25, the climate change conference that ended last week in Madrid.
The bottom line coming out of the event was that no country is prepared to commit to the urgency of the climate crisis.
Said Guterres, as he left Madrid “I am disappointed… “The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation and finance to tackle the climate crisis”.
Countries did reach a partial agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but there was no consensus on what Portuguese media calls “the essential points like regulation of carbon markets”.
Sir David King, a former British government representative at COP21 (out of which emerged the Paris Climate Accord) commented: “If the United States is not backing an agreement that is meaningful, it is extraordinarily difficult for the rest of the world to come to an agreement. And I’m afraid as long as we have [President Donald] Trump in the United States with President [Jair] Bolsonaro in Brazil it is extraordinarily difficult to get all of those countries to agree.”
Image: courtesy of cartoons by josh, saving the planet one cartoon at a time http://cartoonsbyjosh.co.uk/
Josh has also produced a new book this year, called “All you need to know about Climate Change… in cartoons”. For details on how to buy it, see the website.
