UN to decide about Madrid UN Climate Change Conference will not be held in Bonn
BONN/MADRID · The next United Nations Climate Change Conference will probably be held in Madrid. The German Federal Ministry for the Environment welcomed Spain's offer. It would not have been logistically possible to organize the conference in Bonn at such short notice, the Ministry said.
Following Chile’s cancellation of the Climate Change Conference in December, organisers at the United Nations are planning to make a decision on Madrid as the new venue on Friday. Following the Chilean cancellation, Bonn had initially been discussed as a possible alternative location. This is where the UN Climate Secretariat is based and, two years ago, the city had already stepped in to replace Fiji as the host. At that time, however, there was a much longer preparation time. Following the offer from the Spanish government, a spokesman for the German Federal Ministry for the Environment said they were pleased: "In Bonn this would not have been logistically possible at short notice.”
Spain offered its capital as the venue on Thursday. The German government and UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa welcomed the initiative. According to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, the committee in charge will then hold an emergency meeting to discuss the matter. This would allow the conference to take place as planned from 2nd to 13th December. The Chilean government had unexpectedly cancelled the conference due to the continuing social protests in the country.
The Chilean Minister for the Environment and the appointed President of the next COP 25 climate change conference, Carolina Schmidt, officially submitted the Madrid proposal to the United Nations, according to a statement by the Spanish government. Acting President Michal Kurtyka, who chaired the previous COP 24 conference in Katowice, Poland, said on Twitter that he had convened an urgent meeting of the UNFCCC Bureau.
The Climate Change Conference is regarded as one of the most important UN summits and requires a considerable amount of organisational effort for the several tens of thousands of visitors and delegates who attend. The conference is used for negotiating implementation of the Paris Agreement, with which the international community is trying to limit global warming to below two degrees. The rules for emissions trading between states are one of the issues on the agenda this year. (Original text: dpa, Translation: Caroline Kusch)
