What’s the point? Ten years after the Paris treaty, are climate talks getting anywhere?
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EN: The prepositional/temporal structure '[Time duration] after + clause' functions adverbially to set the timeline relative to a past event ('was signed'). Here, the simple past passive 'was signed' marks a fixed point in history, whereas the main clause shifts to the present perfect passive ('has been missed') to emphasize the current state and consequences of failing that target.
Five years after the policy was introduced, its primary economic targets have been missed.
EN: The coordinating conjunction 'yet' connects two contrasting independent clauses. In the second clause, 'insist' takes a content clause with an omitted complementizer 'that' (zero-that clause: '[that] the agreement remains...'), which is standard and common in journalistic and formal registers.
Sales dropped significantly, yet analysts insist the company remains in a strong position.
EN: The linking verb 'remains' is followed by a predicative noun phrase ('a vital moral compass'). In this context, 'moral compass' is a figurative idiom denoting a standard, set of values, or guiding principle that directs ethical conduct.
Integrity must remain the moral compass that directs our corporate decisions.
EN: The 2015 Paris Agreement established the international goal to hold global warming 'well below 2°C' and preferably to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Describing an international treaty as a 'moral compass' highlights that while it lacks hard legal enforcement mechanisms to punish non-compliance, it relies heavily on diplomatic peer pressure, global legitimacy, and ethical consensus.
EN: The present participle phrase 'arguing that...' functions as an adverbial participle clause expressing an accompanying action or explanation (attendant circumstance). Its logical subject is 'Brazilian hosts'.
The committee rejected the proposal, stating that the project was too expensive.
EN: The construction 'matter for [someone] alone' uses the postpositive adjective 'alone' to mean 'exclusively' or 'only', emphasizing that the jurisdiction or responsibility belongs solely to that party.
Budget allocation is a matter for the board of directors alone.
EN: Belém, located at the mouth of the Amazon River in northern Brazil, is a symbolic venue for climate discussions due to its proximity to the Amazon rainforest. In international climate diplomacy, whether nationally determined contributions (NDCs) should be binding multilateral targets or voluntary domestic policies is a continuous point of friction between global oversight and national sovereignty.
EN: The absolute-like construction 'with + noun phrase + perfect participle (-ing)' ('with the United States having withdrawn from Paris') functions as an adverbial phrase of circumstance or cause. Using the perfect participle ('having withdrawn') emphasizes that the action was already completed prior to the situation described in the clause, establishing a clear cause-and-effect timeline.
With the lead singer having lost his voice, the band had no choice but to cancel the tour.
EN: 'Scarcely' is a negative adverb meaning 'hardly' or 'almost not'. When combined with indefinite pronouns like 'anything', it denotes an extreme scarcity ('scarcely anything' = 'almost nothing'). Stylistically, it carries a sophisticated, formal tone frequently seen in journalistic and diplomatic registers.
There was scarcely any food left in the pantry by the end of the storm.
EN: The pattern 'left to negotiate' features a past participle ('left') post-modifying a pronoun ('anything'), followed by an infinitive of purpose/qualification ('to negotiate'). Here, 'left' denotes remainder/availability, and the passive or active infinitive specifies the subsequent potential action.
After settling the major terms, there was little left to discuss.
EN: The term 'Global South' broadly refers to regions outside Europe and North America, predominantly in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, which often share historical challenges and developing-nation perspectives in international climate negotiations. Here, 'Paris' functions as a metonym for the 2015 Paris Agreement, reflecting the substantial geopolitical blow dealt when the United States withdrew.
EN: The quantifier 'few' (without an indefinite article 'a') carries a negative or restrictive connotation, meaning 'hardly any' or 'almost none'. It contrasts sharply with 'a few', which emphasizes the presence of some delegates.
Few critics anticipated that the policy would succeed under such severe economic pressure.
EN: The clause 'it exposed' is a contact clause (a reduced restrictive relative clause) with the relative pronoun 'which' or 'that' omitted, functioning as the direct object of 'exposed' and modifying the antecedent noun 'faultlines'.
The vulnerabilities the report highlighted have forced regulators to intervene.
EN: The compound preposition 'ahead of' indicates temporal precedence, meaning 'in advance of' or 'prior to', frequently used in diplomatic and news contexts to frame upcoming milestone events.
Tensions escalated dramatically ahead of the bilateral summit scheduled for next month.
EN: In multilateral climate diplomacy (such as the UN COP summits), concluding 'with a deal' often merely signifies reaching a consensus-based minimum common denominator rather than achieving genuine unity. The term 'faultlines' metaphorically borrows from geology (tectonic fault lines) to describe deep-seated, systemic geopolitical rifts—typically between developed nations and the Global South over finance and emissions responsibility.
EN: When a negative or restrictive adverbial expression like 'Not only' is placed at the beginning of a clause for rhetorical emphasis, subject-auxiliary inversion is triggered ('have governments repeatedly pledged' instead of 'governments have repeatedly pledged'). The second clause ('but...') typically maintains normal word order.
Not only did the company miss its quarterly targets, but it also lost several key investors.
EN: The correlative conjunction 'not only... but (also)...' coordinates two independent clauses or parallel grammatical elements. In formal news and academic discourse, it establishes a contrast or cumulative escalation, emphasizing the disparity between stated intentions and factual realities.
Not only has inflation eroded household savings, but interest rates have also climbed to historic highs.
EN: '1.5 degrees Celsius' refers to the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, aiming to limit the global average temperature increase above pre-industrial levels to prevent catastrophic climate change. Exceeding this threshold for consecutive years marks a critical psychological and ecological milestone frequently cited in climate diplomacy.
EN: Embedded Question Word Order: In indirect/embedded questions introduced by question words (here: 'what the point of such climate talks is'), the word order follows declarative structure (Subject + Verb) rather than interrogative inversion ('what is the point...'). The copula 'is' comes at the very end of the noun clause acting as the object of 'ask'.
Analysts wonder what the long-term impact of this policy is.
EN: Elliptical Concessive Parenthesis ('however + adjective'): The phrase 'however slow' is a reduced concessive clause (standing for 'however slow it may be' / 'no matter how slow it is'). Inserted parenthetically with commas between the subject 'progress' and the modal verb 'would', it provides a nuanced concession without disrupting the main clause flow.
Reform, however painful, remains essential for national recovery.
EN: Hypothetical Conditional with Prepositional Phrase ('would stall without them'): The modal verb 'would' indicates a hypothetical result (Type 2 / second conditional mood), where the counterfactual condition is implied by the prepositional phrase 'without them' (equivalent to 'if they did not exist' or 'if these talks were not held').
The project would collapse without international funding.
EN: International environmental diplomacy (such as the UN COP summits) frequently faces public cynicism regarding tangible outcomes versus logistical and carbon costs. The phrase 'what the point of... is' captures widespread climate fatigue, balanced against the institutional consensus that multilateral diplomacy is an indispensable fallback.
Key vocabulary words with IPA pronunciation, definitions, example sentences, and interactive quizzes.
Phrases with type tags, bilingual definitions, usage notes, and example sentences.
a naturalized sense of the difference between right and wrong that guides a person's or organization's decisions and behaviors
a term broadly used to identify lower-income, developing, or emerging economies, largely located in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Oceania
used to ask about the purpose, reason, or usefulness of doing something, often implying doubt or skepticism