Source: PIB, Down to Earth
The UN Climate Change Conference COP 25 (2 – 13 December 2019) took place under the Presidency of the Government of Chile and will be held with logistical support from the Government of Spain
Agenda of the conference
- The conference was designed to take the next crucial steps in the UN climate change process.
- Following agreement on the implementation guidelines of the Paris Agreement at COP 24 in Poland last year, a key objective was to complete several matters with respect to the full operationalization of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
- The conference furthermore served to build ambition ahead of 2020, the year in which countries have committed to submit new and updated national climate action plans.
- Crucial climate action work was taken forward in areas including finance, the transparency of climate action, forests and agriculture, technology, capacity building, loss and damage, indigenous peoples, cities, oceans, and gender.
Sessions & other events
The conference included;
- The twenty-fifth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 25)
- The fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 15)
- The second session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 2).
- The fifty-first sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 51)
BASIC Ministerial Joint Statement at UNFCCC COP25
The Ministers(Environment) of Brazil, South Africa, India and China group (BASIC) met during the 25th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, on 10th December 2019. Ministers underlined that COP25 should achieve outcomes as follows:
- To conclude the negotiations related to article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
- To mandate a 2-year Work Programme under SBI to assess the pre-2020 progress and gaps, with a view to making the necessary arrangements to fill those gaps
- To urge developed country Parties to fulfil their commitments on providing finance, technology development and transfer and capacity-building support to developing countries
- To interpret and implement the provisions of the Paris Agreement in a holistic and faithful manner.
Important outcomes of CoP25
- The 25th Conference of Parties (CoP 25) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change fell short on its primary deliverables — rules on markets and finance for ‘loss and damage
- However, it also needed to send a strong signal to countries going into 2020. There was more success on this front.
- Countries agreed in Paris in 2015 to revisit their climate pledges by 2020. But many countries were pushing this year for a clear call for all countries to submit more ambitious climate pledges next year. This is seen as a key means of ensuring countries put a focus on improving their current pledges, as well as empowering civil society to hold them to account.
- But countries such as China and Brazil opposed placing any obligation on countries to submit enhanced pledges next year, arguing it should be each country’s own decision.
- They instead argued the focus should be on pre-2020 action by developing countries to meet their previous pledges
