Cancun: Success or Failure?

Protest at Cancun

The signs weren't looking good as they started the Cancun Climate Conference just over 2 weeks ago. 

• China and the U.S. had fallen out in a preliminary meeting over verification of emission cuts.

• Japan, Russia and Canada were refusing to extend the Kyoto protocol (i.e. The last climate deal) because it didn't include all countries, especially the 2 biggest emitters: The U.S. and China.

• And the word was, if this conference finished as badly as the last one (Copenhagen), the whole U.N. climate negotiation process would be as good as dead.

So, no pressure then.

Two weeks later, as the conference was nearing it's conclusion, things were still looking pretty bad. A number of countries were refusing to budge on a whole range of issues. But, after working long into the last night, they finally had the documents all the countries (except Bolivia) could agree.

The draft agreement commits all nations to keeping the global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees C, although no mechanism for doing this has been sorted out.

Japan, Canada, and Russia have been kept in the process with wording that allowed the possibility of the Kyoto Protocol not being extended, whilst emphasising that the protocol was still the best way forward - Something developing countries had insisted on.

Developing countries will only have their emission cutting measures verified if funded by western money. This keeps the Chinese happy - who saw it as challenge to national sovereignty - and the US, who had insisted on verification.

A 'Green Fund' to help developing nations fight global warming was also agreed: $100 bn (£64 bn)) are to be paid in per year by 2020. It will go towards helping these countries adopt low carbon technology and adapt to climate change. An Adaptation Committee will be set up to support them in their efforts. The fund will be handled by the World Bank (initially), at the insistence of the US, EU and Japan.

Outline details were also worked out for funding the efforts of developing countries to reduce deforestation. This ties in with last month's biodiversity talks at Nagoya.

Success or Failure?
So, another year passes without a binding global agreement on climate change. To some that makes the conference a failure.

Yet the UN climate process lives on and real progress has been made this time round. To me, that's success.

Okay, there's still a long way to go before a meaningful final agreement is made, and a lot can go wrong in the meantime, but Cancun has laid down something than can be built on in South Africa next year. We're still in with a fighting chance.