German development minister proposes biennial rhythm for COP climate summits

Germany’s development minister Gerd Müller has proposed a biennial rhythm for the yearly COP climate summits to make the talks more efficient, report Philipp Fritz and Daniel Wetzel in Die Welt. Müller said the format needed to change because it was “an absurdity” it took three years to work out a rulebook for the Paris Climate Agreement given the urgency to make progress on climate protection. “Against this backdrop, you have to question the raison d’être of major events like the climate summit with more than 20,000 participants,” Müller said. He said next year’s summit should be cancelled after Brazil’s decision not to host the meeting. “While expert commissions continue to negotiate permanently, a meeting of the heads of state every two years should be sufficient to make sizeable progress,” Müller told the paper.

Read the article in German here.