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COP25 will determine climate’s ‘crucial’ year

(EurActiv, 25 Nov 2019) This year’s COP25, which takes place in Madrid in December, will be the start of a crucial year for the environment. By next March, the EU needs to fine-tune its Green Deal and by the end of 2020, China and India will have to be able to anchor themselves to raise ambitions on a more global level. EURACTIV France reports.

The COP25, from 2-15 December, has already been through a very rough journey. Initially planned to take place in Brazil, then set to be hosted by Costa Rica and Chile, it was finally relocated to Madrid after Santiago de Chile was no longer able to host it.

Spain’s Socialist government jumped at the opportunity to show its government’s commitment to climate change-but not only that.

“It is also an opportunity to link, for the first time, climate and biodiversity. We now have a clear vision that stabilising temperatures without protecting biodiversity is not desirable. And a series of political impulses means that it is now possible to put biodiversity at the heart of the climate discussion,” said Sébastien Treyer, director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI).

The concept of using ecosystems to save the planet is by no means new, but the scientific and technological solutions that confirm it are. The elements are, therefore, in place for the UN’s climate and biodiversity bodies to agree on ways to bridge both issues.

For instance, the integration of biodiversity solutions into the climate targets of nation-states. One of those, the so-called ‘intended nationally determined contributions’ (INDCs), is one of the things IDDRI is expecting to happen in Madrid.

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EurActiv, 25 Nov 2019: COP25 will determine climate’s ‘crucial’ year