COP25 Madrid | 2 to 13 December 2019
One (more) missed opportunity
First set to be held in Brazil, then Chile and now in Spain, the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) got off to a rocky start. Brazil, the original host in South America, withdrew the offer to host COP25 shortly before the start of COP24 at the end of November 2018 at the insistence of then President-elect Jair Bolsonaro "due to financial bottlenecks and the imminent change of government". Chile became the host country after Chilean President Sebastián Piñera and Environment Minister Carolina Schmidt issued a formal invitation towards the end of COP24. On 30 October 2019, Chile backed out due to civil unrest and Spain then stepped in to save the event.
Cursed from the beginning, COP25 unfortunately did not bring world leaders to take the next crucial steps in the UN climate change process, failing to fully operationalise the Paris Climate Change Agreement: