The COP25 meeting on the climate yields little

ANNUAL UN CLIMATE summits are never moments of unbridled optimism, but this year's, held in Madrid and dubbed COP25, was particularly dispiriting. Its logo was a clock with its hands at a quarter to 12. Midnight duly passed on Friday December 13th--supposedly the summit's last day, and then again on Saturday. Only on Sunday did delegates agree to weak and watered-down commitments to enact previously promised cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases. And they deferred until next year a decision on r...