Non-Binding Accord in Cancun

The 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in Cancun, Mexico from 29 November to 10 December 2010, reached an agreement, albeit non-binding, on a climate fund and recognized that climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet, and thus requires to be urgently addressed by all countries. Ending a marathon session of talks, 194 countries set a target of limiting the rise in average world temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, and acknowledged that they should take urgent action to meet this long-term goal, consistent with science and on the basis of equity (Doyle 2010).

Most notably, the agreement included a “Green Climate Fund”, with a proposed budget of US$100 billion a year by 2020 to assist poor countries in financing emission reductions and adaptation. Specifically, the fund aims to help poor countries adapt to climate change, creates new mechanisms for the transfer of clean energy technology, provides compensation for the preservation of tropical forests, and strengthens the emissions reductions pledges that came out of the climate change conference in Copenhagen in 2009-end.

However, it is unclear how the US$100 billion a year for the Green Climate Fund will be raised. This means that, as with other global commitments related to aid and technical assistance, the commitment of new flows of aid money might not be fully realized, as so the ambition to keep temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius. Even if the target were attained, it is nowhere near enough to prevent disasters across Africa, Latin America and Asia. Hastening to get a deal—or any deal—at the end of the summit, gaping loopholes and ambiguities were left in, dates were left out and major issues about the final legal form and the emission cuts all countries will need to make were pushed back another year ( Vidal 2010).

The failure to extend the Kyoto Protocol was a disappointing aspect of the summit. A new treaty has eluded the world since the UNFCCC was agreed to in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Convention's 1997 Kyoto Protocol only binds about 40 rich nations to curb emissions during an initial period ending in 2012. Developed and developing nations have long differed over extending the treaty, which applies only to industrialized countries. It was the main cause of conflict in the Copenhagen climate summit, whose organizers had planned to postpone discussion until the next meeting while seeking agreement on less contentious issues. Sadly, it failed to materialize in Cancun and has been left for next year’s conference in South Africa.

Overall, though the agreement fell short of the broad changes scientists argue are needed to avoid disastrous climate change, the main success in Cancun after two weeks of talks was simply preventing the collapse of climate change negotiations, promoting support for a shift to low carbon economies and rebuilding trust between rich and poor countries on the challenges of global warming. Major players were relieved there was no repeat of the acrimonious failure seen at the Copenhagen summit last year, but they warned there was still a long way to go.

Citations

Doyle, Alister. 2010. Climate talks: 19 years, too little action?, Reuters, 12 December

Vidal, John. 2010. Does the Cancun agreement show climate leadership?, Guardian, 13 December