Concerns delay closing of Madrid climate conference

The United Nations climate change conference ran into overtime, with many of the developing countries' concerns yet to be addressed and rifts over rules governing a highly technical article under the landmark Paris Agreement still unresolved.

The annual event in Madrid opened on Dec 2 and was slated to conclude on Friday. Early on Saturday, however, there is still no sign that delegates from almost 200 countries will wrap up the conference soon.

An informal presidency stocktaking conference was postponed for 1 hour and 45 minutes on Friday afternoon after many senior delegates had seemingly just managed to pull themselves out of tight negotiations.

Delegates, NGO employees and journalists soon found, however, many of the disputes were still there.

The conference was tasked with putting the final touches on finishing the rules governing the 2015 Paris Agreement. Last year, parties reached consensus on guidelines for most parts of the treaty, which will be implemented after 2020, but not highly technical Article Six, which includes a global carbon trading mechanism.

The mechanism allows countries to buy carbon emission credits to fulfill their carbon-cutting commitments - known as NDCs, or nationally determined contributions.

Considering that the cost for carbon emission reduction is different in different countries, the mechanism is believed to be one of the most efficient and cost-friendly approaches in curbing global warming.

Representatives from over 20 countries spoke at the stocktaking conference. Article Six is one of the most frequently mentioned terms, suggesting that little progress has been made over it.

Many developing countries have expressed great concern on the financial commitment from developed countries when they were given the floor to speak, meaning that inadequate progress has been made in another task of the conference - to check how the commitment has been honored.

According to the Paris Agreement, developed countries should provide annually $100 billon of financial support to developing countries to facilitate their climate mitigation and adaption efforts.

"The developing countries will be unable to implement the ambitious actions that we very much want to and very much need to without adequate financial support and capacity building," stressed a representative from Malaysia, who said he was speaking on behalf of Like Minded Developing Countries.

"I urge all the parties to reach out to others and work on the unresolved issues that still remain. We are a few hours away from closing. I remind you, all the world's eyes are on us," said Carolina Schmidt, president of the conference and Minister of Environment of Chile, as she concluded the session.

In spite of the remaining disputes, it's common that the UN climate change conference doesn't conclude on time.