UN climate boss: 'Good compromise' beats no deal on warming

U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa was not happy with a last-minute fight over coal that ended in a compromise at the Glasgow climate talks

GLASGOW, Scotland -- It was no deal or a lump of coal at Glasgow climate talks and for Patricia Espinosa, the United Nations’ climate secretary, there was no choice.

“No deal was the worst possible result there. Nobody wins,” Espinosa said in an interview with The Associated Press Sunday, about 15 hours after nearly 200 nations agreed on what is now being called the Glasgow Climate Pact.

The world got a climate deal that outside experts said showed progress, but not success. It didn’t achieve any of the three U.N. goals: Pledges that would cut world carbon dioxide emissions by about half, $100 billion in yearly climate aid from rich countries to poor ones and half that money going to help the developing world adapt to the harms of a warming world.

Even more disappointing, a big world economy — India — which is already seeing droughts and extreme heat from global warming was the nation that watered down the final Glasgow deal.