Cop25 and the climate challenges

18 December 2019

On Sunday 15 December, the Conference of the Parties organized by the UNFCCC, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, ended in Madrid with the participation of representatives from over 190 countries worldwide.

The objective of the Conference was regularize a new process for the emission of CO2, one of the most critical points of the Paris Agreement: the Article 6 provides a credit system whereby countries that pollute less can sell quotas of greenhouse gases to more polluting countries.

However, no results have been achieved. “Cop25 was a failure”, this is the comment of all the international newspapers in reporting the position of some emerging countries. India, Brazil and South Africa have in fact declared that they cannot guarantee further efforts in this direction, while China has even asked to delay the application of the rules on CO2 emissions.

Leaving aside Article 6 has sanctioned the sunset of the Conference in which Europe has shown itself still proactive, but the “truth is that without big countries we are going nowhere”, said Francesco Ferrante, Vice President of Kyoto Club, a non-profit organization that deals with achieving the objectives of reducing greenhouse gas emissions taken on by the Kyoto Protocol.

Matteo Mura, Scientific Director of the Global MBA in Green Energy and Sustainability of Bologna Business School, explained how the European system has played a fundamental role in defining the exchange of greenhouse gas emission quotas. “The Emission Trading Scheme is a sort of market in which the exchange takes place based on a cap and trade criterion, setting a maximum cap on emissions for the countries involved in the system ”.

Cop25 therefore did not meet the expectations. Still there are positive signs about the possibility of filling this gap through political actions that will confirm the validity of the Paris agreements again.

“The article 6 of the Paris Agreement had to ensure that some countries did not make an excessive sale, but this discussion fell”, continued the Scientific Director Mura, underlining also “how the big oil companies have become very active rapidly to reduce environmental impacts, disinvesting in their policies and exploiting only renewable energy”.