As COP25 ends, huge work needed to make next climate summit a success

The Blue Marble - taken during Apollo 17 lunar mission 1972

As talks ended at COP25 in Madrid today, Christian Aid's Global Climate Lead, Dr Katherine Kramer, said: "The UK now has a gargantuan task of overseeing a successful climate summit in Glasgow next year. That meeting is supposed to be the moment the world responds to the climate crisis by strengthening the pledges made in the Paris Agreement. To avoid failure, the UK will need to put its own house in order, in creating and implementing policies to rapidly reduce its own emissions. It will also need to deploy its diplomatic skills to create an outcome that responds to the demands of both science and people.

"With a Brexit deadline of December to negotiate a trade deal with the EU, the UK's diplomatic service will simultaneously have to ensure all countries arrive in Glasgow in November having enhanced their climate plans. It's a huge task that will require the highest level of diplomatic skill and hard work.

"The decision to shelve weak rules on carbon markets until next year is good news, in the hope that strong rules can instead be agreed. However, it means even more work for the UK in the lead up to and at Glasgow.

"After a year of even more extreme climate impacts, new and terrifying scientific reports and fury from school children around the world, we came to Madrid expecting countries to agree to step up their actions to tackle the climate crisis. Instead we got two weeks of blocking from big polluters like Australia, Japan, Brazil, the US and Saudi Arabia among others.

"This disconnect between the people and politicians will continue to widen, until leaders wake up to the climate crisis they are fuelling with their appalling inaction.

"Support for poor communities dealing with the worst climate impacts, known as 'loss and damage' was not what we hoped for. Historic emitters spent the two weeks trying to shirk their responsibility to the poorest and most vulnerable people: those not responsible for climate breakdown. But much of the work was also pushed to next year in Glasgow so the fight for that will continue."