Context

As announced by the UNFCCC Secretariat on 1 November 2019, the COP Bureau agreed that COP 25 will take place from 2-13 December, in Madrid, Spain.

About

• The 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP25, is the 25th United Nations Climate Change conference.
• It was held in Madrid, Spain, under the presidency of the Chilean government.
• The conference incorporates the 25th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 15th meeting of the parties for the Kyoto Protocol (CMP15), and the second meeting of the parties for the Paris Agreement.

Why climate emergency?

• In the climate lexicon, tipping points are thresholds beyond which certain impacts can no longer be avoided even if temperatures are brought down later. Examples include the loss of the Amazon rainforest or of the West Antarctic ice sheet.
• Recent IPCC reports, including last year’s Global Warming of 1.5°C and this year’s Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, suggest that tipping points could be exceeded even between 1 and 2 °C of warming.
• This is worrying as we are on track to a 3.2 degree warmer world, suggests the UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report.
• The report addresses biosphere tipping points such as Amazonian deforestation, which can trigger abrupt carbon releases into the atmosphere, amplify climate change and reduce remaining emission budgets.

It calls on governments to:

• Increase implementation across all thematic areas to realize multiple benefits;
• Create the conditions needed for non-Party action;
• Continue and strengthen the Global Climate Action agenda within the UNFCCC process post- 2020;
• Align finance flows with finance needs, and;
• Strengthen the completeness and robustness of the reporting of results from climate action.

Several issues been discussed in the meeting

• The Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts (WIM);
• International climate finance;
• Capacity building;
• Matters relating to least developed countries (LDCs);
• The forum on the impact of the implementation of response measures;
• Gender and climate change;
• Common time frames for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement
• The Koronivia joint work on agriculture;
• National adaptation plans (NAPs)
• The Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP)