The COP25 meeting on the climate yields little

ANNUAL UN CLIMATECOP summits are never moments of unbridled optimism, but this year’s, held in Madrid and dubbed 25, was particularly dispiriting. Its logo was a clock with its hands at a quarter to 12. Midnight duly passed on Friday December 13th—supposedly the summit’s last day, and then again on Saturday. Only on Sunday did delegates agree to weak and watered-down commitments to enact previously promised cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases. And they deferred until next year a decision on regulating a new international carbon market.In 2015, in Paris, nearly 200 countries promised to stop global warming before average temperatures rose by more than 1.5-2°C above pre-industrial levels. Most climate scientists, though, admit privately that there is little hope of this. A coalition of governments including the European Union therefore came to Madrid demanding a strongly worded final text that would urge all countries to promise in 2020 to cut emissions further and faster than agreed so far. That text failed to materialise.