MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th December, 2019) Europe failed to gain any noticeable support for its ambitious climate policies, dubbed the "Green Deal," during the 25th UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, with economic reasons being at the root of the failure, experts told Sputnik.
Upon assuming the role of European Commission president on December 1, Ursula von der Leyen called on European leaders to sign her "Green Deal," a comprehensive set of policies that will make Europe a carbon-neutral region by 2050. On Thursday, the European Council gave its approval for von der Leyen's new policy proposals, and the deal will be put to the European parliament next year.
However, faces were long and desperately serious on Sunday afternoon at the final meeting of the conference, which lasted two extra days in a desperate attempt agree on the tonnage and financial objectives for the carbon trading scheme.
Terms such as "deep crisis," "awful mess," and "total failure" were used to describe COP25 by experts, climate activists and NGOs alike.
COP25 ended with far less than what was excepted from the marathon negotiations. The entire purpose of the event was for nations to scale up their own ambitions and raise the decarbonization targets decided in Paris at COP21, but after an extra day of contentious negotiations, all language referring to that goal had been stripped from the resolution.
"The international community has missed an important opportunity to demonstrate greater ambition in terms of mitigation [reduction of greenhouse gas emissions], adaptation and financing of the climate crisis," UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a statement, adding that he was "disappointed" with the event's outcome.
Demands for radical and immediate action were not met either. Spanish Environment Minister Teresa Ribera even said said that the conference left a "bittersweet taste" in her mouth.
The question that the COP25 conference tried to solve was how to decouple economic development from the ecological footprint, but the draft text on COP ambitions, presented Saturday by the Chilean presidency of the event, provoked an outcry from the US and China, among many others, forcing a new round of consultations.
According to Greenpeace, COP25 resulted in "a totally unacceptable result" and represented an "attack on the soul of the Paris Agreement."
"The cynical greed of the fossil industry plunged the fight against climate change into a deep crisis and the political leaders lost in endless quarrels over Article 6 which regulates the carbon market, have shown no commitment to reduce their emissions," the organization said.
Greenpeace also said that the EU member states must "work urgently and consistently to raise their ambition" to be able to fulfill the very ambitious goal set by the "Green Deal," which could not muster unanimity during the European Council leaders' summit last week.
The key negotiations were about decarbonization, and the participants were far from "young, green and in agreement," Professor Damien Ernst, an expert in electromechanical engineering and head of the Smart grids lab at Belgium's University of Liege, told Sputnik.
"No, it is more like START [Treaty] negotiations aimed at reducing nuclear arsenals. It is incredibly difficult and vital!" he said.
Ernst went on to say that if a country went too fast into negative economic growth � because that is what will happen if carbon is removed from processes and products � that country would enter a deadly spiral.
"Competing countries will exploit the fact that their cost of energy is more competitive and their products cheaper. The US, China, Brazil, India and many others have understood that very well. They refuse to be pulled down by the European dream of a 'green deal.' Europe is only supported by mini-island states, like Fiji, and very poor African countries wishing to get financial help," the expert said.
All developed countries that negotiated in Madrid refused to kill their economies, see industries delocalized, and be exposed to recession, Ernst said, adding that unlike the US, Europe was ready to pull its industry to the ground with soaring energy costs.
At the Thursday European Council meeting, the Green Deal was opposed only by Poland. Ernst believed that other countries had just not realized the costly implications yet.
"In Europe, the decline will increase with the departure of Great Britain. The UK has always been very pragmatic and will side with the US. If Europe does apply the COP25 ideas alone, it will be economically moribund by then and we will see a split between nations in Europe. Poland has understood the danger, not the others yet," he said, adding that these supporters of the "Green Deal" were intoxicated by teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg and the youth movement she inspired over the last year.
'COLLECTIVE SIN' NOTION REJECTED
Charles Gave, economist and fund manager at Institut des libertes in Paris, told Sputnik that when one had affordable and abundant energy for 15-20 years, the economy thrived, but the cost of energy was currently exploding and "central banks can not print petroleum."
"Somehow, Europe has re-introduced the notion of 'collective sin.' The decisions taken lightly by the European Commission in its 'Green Deal' would very probably � if applied as such from 2020 onwards, bring more delocalisation of European industries, an even more anaemic growth, and generally a shrinking of the economy, while the rest of the developed and developing world do not follow suit and will ripe the fruits of European efforts when and if the technologies developed become affordable," he said.
The German government and the EU failed with their climate policy in Madrid, announcing loud and clear their ambitious climate targets but being unable to convince the international community to abide by them, Heiko Wildberg, a member of the Bundestag for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), told Sputnik.
"It was striking at the Madrid conference that the 'major climate powers' held back. Some, like the United States and Brazil, openly opposed the bloc of the EU. Others, such as Russia, China and India, were probably satisfied with the silent failure of the conference," he said.
He went on to add that the results of COP25 showed that many countries no longer recognized the climate emergency, just like the 500 international scientists who proclaimed in an open letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that: "There is no urgency!"
US President Donald Trump did not even bother to comment on COP25, which is unsurprising when looking at the fact that his country is officially pulling out of the Paris Agreement next year.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, still stung by the insults of French President Emmanuel Macron about Amazon fires, said that the conference was a "commercial game [that] is played by rich countries, mostly European."�
In addition to Poland, which did not receive von der Leyen's "Green Deal" well, there were strong minority voices in each European member state that shared the same concerns about the rising costs it would entail.
