What the COP 25 of Madrid left us

1. The agreement is qualified today by many voices as minimal. Has this COP25 been useful for anything or has it been a procedure for the Glasgow COP?It has not been merely a step to COP26 in Glasgow, as it has just revealed a crack that is still irreconcilable between those countries that are at the forefront of climate actions, in accordance with the goals of the Paris Agreement, and those, at least, but very polluting, which still intend to delay any realistic and concrete ambition. The Chilean Presidency itself acknowledged that despite having been the longest COP in history, the agreements reached “were not sufficient to address the urgency of the climate change crisis.”

2. What keys would you highlight from the new agreement? And what points would you have liked to have been more ambitious?There is still everything to do in what is called the carbon market. And that has been the weakest point, because it delays any Ambition to reduce net carbon dioxide emissions to zero by 2050. The rules of this market game are fought between a supply and demand space between two countries to market units carbon, or in establishing a regulated market, with taxes and tax punishments, by a centralized governance system, for all countries, as was successfully tested two decades ago, by the Montreal Protocol with the Ozone Hole. Most countries agree to go this way. Australia, an oil exporting country and a high issuer per capita, has wanted the past credits that it has from the Montreal market to be accounted for in the new market; and has received a resounding no for most countries. However, the United States, Brazil and Saudi Arabia have defended the Australian position, delaying all the progress of the discussion and relegating it to the next COP. The issue of how much and how financial flows will be channeled for Losses and Damages, aimed at mitigating and adapting the most vulnerable countries, has also been relegated. There is a refusal of some of the countries rich in long-term financing, as the most affected have requested. The final document only urges countries to expand their contribution, create new financing capacities and a group of experts to help clarify the path. Many of them, China and India, for example, already depend on these financings to be able to increase their Ambitions for 2020. The most positive in my opinion has been the concrete plan presented by the European Union (what is called Ambition) , except Poland, with a view to achieving a 50-55% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, and neutrality by 2050. The challenge that remains for Glasgow is enormous: that countries arrive in Glasgow with concrete plans and take responsibility for implementing them. The document barely reminds countries that the commitment is to communicate or update the Ambition plans for 2020 according to the goals of the Paris Agreement.

3. Can the Church, in the light of Laudato Si ‘, be happy with this new agreement?COP25 did not deal with a new agreement, but is another step in the period of review and discussion of the ambitions and global strategies (carbon market, financing for mitigation and adaptation, etc.) to be adopted so that, from  2020, countries begin to implement their own climate action plans in order to achieve the goals of “decarbonization” and warming provided for in the Paris Agreement. I think we would never have had the 2015 Paris Agreement without the mobilization and pressure from civil society organizations present at the COP, especially in the last 15 years. In this sense, the Church, together with the numerous Catholic NGOs that are accredited by the UN, to be part of the COPs as “observers”, have contributed essentially. Let us not forget that months before, in June 2015, Pope Francis had presented the encyclical Laudato Si ‘, read with great expectation by everyone who works on these issues and even received with gratitude and enthusiasm from the Secretary General of the UN at that time, Ban Ki-Moon, for arriving at such a crucial moment of humanity. I was at COP21 in Paris and I can assure you that the effects of the encyclical were felt at the Climate Summit that year. I believe that, in the same way, the Church, together with civil society organizations, will have a very important role of pressure and moral demand at the next COP26 in Glasgow, where it will be key for countries to demonstrate that their climate actions are loyal to the “Word committed” in the Paris Agreement, and they live up to the circumstances that humanity and the earth claim.

Fray Eduardo Agosta Scarel was interviewed by Rubén Cruz from VIDA NUEVA a Spanish Catholic journal, December 15, 2019.

An article is available at  this site,

& in another printed article  in VIDA NUEVA #3157, 14-20 DECEMBER 2019; retrieved from this site.