Reinhard Mechler (IIASA)
COP25, the 25th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Madrid, failed to deliver the necessary results in year 1 after Fridays For Future. Two weeks of intensive negotiations at the summit, jointly hosted by Spain and Chile in Madrid, led to nothing more than minimal compromises. Rules for global CO2 trading (Article 6 of the Paris Climate Agreement) could not be agreed upon. During the negotiations, there was a risk of reaching an agreement that would have allowed some countries to count emission certificates from avoidance activities twice, or to carry over credits from the earlier Kyoto commitment period — which would have massively undermined the achievement of the 1.5 oC target. In the end, the realisation prevailed that no agreement was the better outcome, and that negotiations should be continued the following year.
The second major topic was financial support for particularly affected countries and communities, especially for climate impacts that occur despite adaptation efforts. Here too, no consensus could be reached on new financing mechanisms; only the option of access to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) was vaguely agreed upon, which now requires further clarification and increased replenishment of this climate fund.
On strengthening collective climate ambition towards the 1.5 oC target — the centrepiece of the legally binding yet voluntary-based Paris Agreement — no real breakthrough was achieved either, partly due to political tensions, despite the hopes of many negotiators and the vehement demands of civil society. The Chilean conference presidency found itself unable to put forward stricter climate protection targets as planned, due to domestic unrest. Some 'climate change-sceptic' states, such as the USA, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil, generally sought to undermine the agreement and prevent consensus.
One bright spot: the Green Deal presented by the new EU Commission to achieve 'net zero' greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 was well received. As an intermediate step, the EU-wide reduction target for 2030 was raised from 40% to 50%. The challenge now is to put the climate plan — which cuts across all policy areas — into concrete terms, and it is the responsibility of all EU member states to make it meaningful. Austria too would be called upon to honour its commitments and ensure that the National Energy and Climate Plan (NEKP) submitted to the EU Commission robustly delivers at least the required reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 36% by 2030 (calculated on the basis of 2005). The NEKP adopted by the government on 18 December 2020 does not yet claim to meet these requirements. The implementation of the Green Deal will in any case require a considerable further increase in ambition.
Despite a strong and committed presence and actions from civil society (with good Austrian participation), the Madrid negotiations were, on the whole, an inadequate start to 2020 — the beginning of the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The task now is to raise climate ambition on both climate protection and adaptation in order to adequately address the climate crisis. As outlined in the Madrid final communiqué, science has a particularly important role to play in generating evidence-based support for the evaluation of planned and implemented measures within the framework of a climate-just transformation. In this spirit, CCCA continues to offer its support to Austrian decision-makers.