With the Chile-Madrid-COP25 concluded, ICLEI Head of Global Policy and Advocacy, Yunus Arikan reflects on the hope and frustration in a CityTalk blog.

The longest-ever climate conference, COP25, concluded on Sunday. The talks punted a number of meaningful decisions to 2020, including a decision on a global market for carbon emissions trading, known as Article 6. Beyond the delayed decision-making, some results were also cause for disappointment, setting us back from progress contained within the ambition of the Paris Agreement, including a weakened call for the next round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that doesn’t require any new enhancement of the “ambition” of these goals. Additionally, none of the decisions contained any reference to the role of local and regional governments or to multi-level collaboration (you can read the final decisions here, as well as excellent analysis of the talks here and here).