SSDD - Governments Urged To "Energize" COP 25 Climate Talks Starting In Spain Next Week
No pressure, so, yeah . . . whatevs.
Policymakers are under pressure as more extreme weather events, such as record floods in Venice and wildfires in Australia and California, are linked to climate change.
“The science is clearer and the devastating impacts of climate change continue across every region in the world,” said analysts at HSBC. “The silver lining is that public awareness has been growing and may raise the pressure to act, however bold and ambitious policies are sparse because of economic and geopolitical events,” they added.
The annual U.N. climate conference, known as COP25 this year, aims to tackle outstanding issues around the Paris Agreement to limit a rise in global temperatures to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius. As current pledges under the agreement will not be enough to curb temperature rises and easily overshoot the 2C limit, countries have agreed to present more ambitious commitments by 2020 and every five years after that. The two-week event will start on Dec. 2 in Madrid, after its original host, Santiago, the Chilean capital, withdrew last month due to riots over inequality.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has started the process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, while Brazil has been criticized for developing the Amazon region for farming and mining amid concern over deforestation. The European Union and Britain are grappling with Brexit and there is a snap UK general election on Dec. 12. A new EU Commission will also start work on Dec. 1, a day before the conference, which will see the current climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete replaced with Frans Timmermans.
EDIT
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-accord/under-pressure-governments-urged-to-energize-climate-talks-idUSKBN1XZ1QR