The UN climate change conference, which is about two days longer than the original plan, ended in Madrid on the 15th. Despite the long and arduous negotiations among the participants, the conference did not produce encouraging results.

The document "Chile Madrid moment of action" adopted by this conference points out that there is an "urgent need" for all parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions leading to global warming. However, the conference failed to reach a consensus on the core issue of the implementation rules of Article VI of the Paris Agreement, and relevant issues can only be left to the next year's climate conference for further negotiations. This result disappointed many people, but the participants expressed their wish to make progress on relevant issues next year.

"Core task" not completed

The conference was originally planned to be held from the 2nd to the 13th, but it was postponed to the 15th. In the meantime, the topics of inventory, adaptation, climate finance, technology transfer, capacity-building and support before 2020 were discussed, among which the negotiation on Article VI of the Paris agreement was the core task of the current conference. Article 6 deals with carbon market mechanism and cooperation, and the implementation of relevant contents helps to promote the continuous participation of public and private sectors in climate mitigation actions.

Both the Secretary General of the United Nations, Guterres, and the president of the current session of the general assembly, Carlina Schmidt, Minister of environment of Chile, urged the completion of the negotiations on Article VI of the Paris Agreement as soon as possible. However, due to the complexity of the issues involved in Article 6, until the conclusion of the conference more than 40 hours later than the original plan, representatives of all parties still could not reach a consensus.

Guterres expressed "disappointment" at the outcome of this round of negotiations. He said in a statement released on the 15th that the international community has lost an important opportunity to deal with the climate crisis. But he also stressed: "we should not give up, and I will not give up."

Zhao Yingmin, head of the Chinese delegation and vice minister of the Ministry of ecological environment, said that during the conference, the Chinese delegation has always played a positive and constructive role. Although the conference failed to reach an agreement in the relevant negotiations on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the conference will continue to promote relevant parties to strive for an early consensus.

Li Gao, deputy head of the Chinese delegation and director of the Department of climate change response of the Ministry of ecological environment, told Xinhua News Agency: "this conference did not reach an agreement on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which has certain impact on the implementation of the Paris Agreement, but this carbon market mechanism is only one part of it, and there is no market mechanism. Now each country is also taking action on its own So there is influence, but it is not an insurmountable influence. "

"Urgent need" to reduce emissions

In addition to Article VI of the Paris Agreement, developed and developing countries also have major differences on issues such as emission reduction responsibilities and financial arrangements.

The document "Chile Madrid moment of action" adopted by the conference pointed out that all parties "urgently need" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions leading to global warming, so as to achieve the temperature control goal set by the landmark Paris Agreement. However, the declaration did not mention how to narrow the gap between the goal of temperature control and current emission reduction commitments of all countries, and how to implement the "common but differentiated responsibilities".

The Paris agreement reached in 2015 proposes that all parties will strengthen their response to the threat of climate change, control the global average temperature rise within 2 degrees Celsius compared with the pre industrial level, and strive to control the temperature rise within 1.5 degrees Celsius.

However, the new version of the emission gap report released by the United Nations Environment Programme before the current climate conference points out that even if the national independent emission reduction contributions submitted by countries under the current Paris Agreement are realized, the global temperature may still rise by 3.2 degrees Celsius, bringing more extensive and destructive climate impact. The report argues that in the short term, developed countries need to implement emission reduction faster than developing countries for the sake of fairness and justice, and calls on all countries to make more contributions to achieve the combined effect.

The 2019 annual report on China's policies and actions to deal with climate change issued by the Ministry of ecology and environment before the conference also pointed out that the biggest problem facing the current climate multilateral process is the lack of political will of developed countries to provide support. In the report, China urged developed countries to provide adequate, sustained and timely support to developing countries in a transparent, predictable and public funding based manner, including fulfilling the commitment of providing developing countries with us $100 billion of climate funding annually by 2020; and proposing new collective quantitative funding goals starting from US $100 billion as soon as possible, including detailed road map and timetable And so on.

"More determined" looking forward to next year

Although there is no consensus on the negotiation of core issues at this conference, all parties still place high hopes on the global climate governance system and hope to make progress at the new UN climate change conference in Glasgow next year.

Guterres said in a statement released after the meeting that despite his disappointment with the results of the meeting, he was "more determined than ever" to make countries commit to do what is scientifically pointed out to be done in 2020, with a view to achieving carbon neutrality and other goals by 2050.

On the unresolved issues of the Congress, Li Gao said: "although the Congress did not reach an agreement on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, all parties expressed an open attitude and were willing to further consult on this issue."

There may also be some positive factors next year. As Li Gao introduced,

Although there is no consensus on the negotiation of core issues at this conference, all parties still place high hopes on the global climate governance system and hope to make progress at the new UN climate change conference in Glasgow next year.

Guterres said in a statement released after the meeting that despite his disappointment with the results of the meeting, he was "more determined than ever" to make countries commit to do what is scientifically pointed out to be done in 2020, with a view to achieving carbon neutrality and other goals by 2050.

On the unresolved issues of the Congress, Li Gao said: "although the Congress did not reach an agreement on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, all parties expressed an open attitude and were willing to further consult on this issue."

There may also be some positive factors next year. As Li Gao said, next year, many countries will report on the progress of implementing national independent contribution and issue a low emission development strategy in the middle of this century, which will further consolidate or strengthen the global efforts to cope with climate change.

But in next year's negotiations, it is still necessary for developed countries to show their political will, especially to consider how to provide more support for developing countries to adapt to climate change through mechanisms, and at the same time, to fully respect the independent contributions of developing countries, so as to find solutions.

Zhang Jiawei, reporter of Xinhua news agency, Ren Ke, Feng Junwei