Climate Change: Spain Offers To Host COP25 In Madrid

[appalachiablue]

Source: BBC News

Just a day after the President of Chile said his country could no longer hold the world's annual climate conference, Spain has offered to host it in Madrid.

The critical meeting, called COP25, was due to take place in Santiago for two weeks from 3 December. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera said his government needed "to prioritise re-establishing public order" after serious anti-government protests.

Spain's offer will be considered by the UN's climate body next week. The Spanish government said it considered multilateral action on climate change to be a priority for the UN. The annual Conference of the Parties (COP) is usually an important moment for taking stock of where the world stands on climate change.

For a quarter of a century, negotiators from almost 200 countries have gathered to try to advance a global strategy for tackling rising temperatures. However, COP25 has become a problem with country after country finding reasons not to host.


Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50255460

---

COP25 was originally supposed to be held in Brazil. But in November last year, then President-elect Jair Bolsonaro pulled out. The far-right leader said it was due to the change of government and budget restrictions, however, he had recently chosen a foreign minister who claimed "climate alarmism" was just a plot by "cultural Marxists".

A month later, Chile was selected to host the climate conference instead. Tens of thousands of delegates are making plans to travel to Chile for the meeting and the abrupt cancellation on Wednesday by President Piñera was a real shock.