A muted cheer for the Cancún agreement
Too many issues were left unresolved for the talks to be deemed an unqualified success. But progress was undoubtedly made
- Observer editorial
- The Observer, Sunday 12 December 2010
It would be rash to hail the conclusion of this month’s climate talks in Cancún as an unqualified success. Too many issues that affect the fate of our overheating world were left unresolved at the end of negotiations. In particular, the prospects that an emissions deal to tie both developing and developed nations to binding targets – replacing the present Kyoto agreement which runs out in 2012 – remain worryingly remote. Many months of hard negotiation lie ahead.
Nevertheless, enough was agreed by delegates in Mexico to raise hopes that climatic disaster can be avoided in the long term. The failure of the Copenhagen climate summit last year dealt a worrying blow to the idea that humanity could control its output of greenhouse gases and if delegates had also left Cancún without any kind of progress, the whole multilateral process for dealing with climate change would have been at risk. The fact that delegates this time had found the will to compromise suggests lessons have been learned over the past 12 months and that hopes for successful outcomes, at future talks, are not misplaced.
In fact, the Cancún negotiations achieved more than this. First, they outlined a mechanism that could play a critical role in helping to prevent the deforestation of developing nations, a major ecological issue. Second, the talks established a fund that will raise and disburse $100bn (£64bn) a year by 2020 to protect poor nations against climate impacts and assist them with low-carbon development. Third, they set up a mechanism to transfer low-carbon technologies to developing countries. As chief US negotiator Todd Stern put it, we have “a text that, while not perfect, is certainly a good basis for moving forward”.
Negotiators’ concerns for the future of the world’s forests should be viewed as being particularly encouraging. According to the WWF, the equivalent of 36 football pitches of trees have been cleared from the surface of our planet every minute for the past decade. Now a scheme – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation – has been proposed to try to halt this destruction and provide developing countries with funds that will help them protect their forests. The scale of the scheme, outlined on Friday, is somewhat confused, however, and requires further work.
Similar concerns affect the proposed Green Climate Fund. As it stands, this scheme will initially use the World Bank as a trustee – as the US, EU and Japan had demanded – while giving oversight to a new body balanced between developed and developing countries. But many developing nations are deeply suspicious of the World Bank. They perceive it as a tool of western foreign policy. Great care will be needed in setting up this fund if it is to avoid being similarly tainted.
Meanwhile, it has been agreed that developing countries will have their emission-curbing measures subjected to international verification – but only when they have received the funds they have been promised by the west. This formulation has satisfied both China, which had originally voiced concerns about verification procedures, and the US, which had demanded them.
Much more work will be required in preparation for the next round of climate talks in South Africa. But progress and compromise in Cancún keep hope alive.