(Bloomberg) -- Envoys from almost 200 countries gathered in Madrid for the first day of two weeks of talks on climate change organized by the United Nations.

Their goal is to build on the four-year-old Paris Agreement, where governments pledged to limit fossil-fuel pollution, and to revive a moribund corner of the carbon market. All times from Madrid.

Key Developments:

  • UN’s Guterres issues clarion call to world on climate action
  • Almost 50 heads of state gather in Madrid for first day of Madrid conference
  • U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi leads a delegation from Senate and Congress
  • New EU team headed by new European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen attend the talks

Read more:

  • As Climate Protesters Fume, Envoys Build a Wall of Green Money
  • EU’s Von Der Leyen to Pose a Climate Challenge to China, U.S.
  • All Eyes on Top Polluter China as Global Climate Talks Begin

The “U.S. Is Still In” The Paris Agreement: Pelosi (3 p.m.)

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi reminded delegates that the delegation from Congress and the Senate are committed to the fight against climate change. President Donald Trump has vowed to pull out of the Paris Agreement, a process that will take until November to complete.

“By coming here, we want to say we’re still in -- the U.S. is still in,” Pelosi said at a press conference. “Our delegation is here to send a message that Congress’s commitment to take action on the climate crisis is iron clad.”

READ MORE: U.S. to Negotiate Carbon Trades Under Climate Pact Trump Shuns

Carbon Debt with Developing Markets Long Overdue: Nauru (1:45pm)

The world’s poorest nations, the most vulnerable to climate change, are having their say at the start of the talks with calls for increased finance and more ambition from industrial nations.

Rich countries’ carbon debt with developing nations is long overdue, Nauru President Lionel Aingimea said in a speech at the opening ceremony. “The developing world is more than just a market to sell green tech and financial products.”

The consensus needed to fight climate change is “a political fight, plain and simple,” he said as he encouraged envoys to listen to scientific reports, and to the voices of young people around the world who are calling for action. Young people “understand the implications of science because they have the most at stake.”

Article 6 Deal Should Be Done ‘Right’: WRI (1:15pm)

An agreement by participants at COP25 on creating market mechanisms to help nations meet emissions targets is important, but should not be achieved at all costs, said Yamide Dagnet senior associate of international climate action at the World Resources Institute.

This year, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is one of the key political focal points. It deals with creating market mechanisms that each nation can use to help it meet emissions targets — something companies think they can profit from. At last year’s round of talks, nations failed to reached any agreement on market structures and the issue was shelved for another year.

Spain’s Sanchez Calls for Urgent, Fair Transition (11:30am)

The transition toward a de-carbonized world must happen urgently, but it must also be fair to everyone, Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said during the opening ceremony. “Spain will honor its word with more action and more ambition -- and will leave no one behind.”

Sanchez encouraged envoys to “go further, faster” before the world reaches a point of no return. “It depends on us to repair the damage we caused, and to halt the damage that’s coming,” he said. “We have the means and we have the technique to make it possible.”

UN Secretary General Calls for More Action from Top Polluters (11:15am)

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged delegates to work with a sense of “ambition and urgency” as the so-called COP25 meeting opened. Following are excerpts of his speech:

“We stand at a critical juncture in our collective efforts to limit dangerous global heating,” he said. “Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?”

“The latest, just-released data from the World Meteorological Organization show that levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached another new record high. Global average levels of carbon dioxide reached 407.8 parts per million in 2018.”

“Not long ago, 400 parts per million was seen as an unthinkable tipping point. The last time there was a comparable concentration of CO2 was between 3 and 5 million years ago, when the temperature was between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius warmer and sea levels were 10 to 20 meter higher than today.The signs are unmissable. The last five years have been the hottest ever recorded.”

“The consequences are already making themselves felt in the form of more extreme weather events and associated disasters, from hurricanes to drought to floods to wildfires. Ice caps are melting. In Greenland alone, 179 billion tonnes of ice melted in July. Permafrost in the Arctic is thawing 70 years ahead of projections. Antarctica is melting three times as fast as a decade ago,” he said.

Temperature Increases Set to Push Past UN Target: Climate Action Tracker (6:42am)

Global temperature increases since the industrial revolution are on track to push well past the United Nations target of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), according to research from Climate Action Tracker.

To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Millan Lombrana in Santiago at lmillan4@bloomberg.net;Jeremy Hodges in London at jhodges17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Luzi Ann Javier at ljavier@bloomberg.net, Reed Landberg, Andrew Reierson

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