Industry NewsThe latest United Nation's meeting on climate change has ended with world leaders agreeing on new measures to cut emissions and arrest the scale of global warming. However, the agreements are not legally binding and there remain concerns over the extent which nations will follow through on these pledges. The Cancun agreement saw more endorsements at the outset than the Copenhagen Accord at the end of 2010 and the meeting was seen as more of a success. Although, delegates did go into to the Cancun talks with lower expectations for success.
The Cancun agreement can be seen to be working on the pledges made at Copenhagen. This includes a more formal agreement that temperature increases should be limited to 2C and that aid should be provided to developing nations. A 'Green Fund' of $100 billion per annum has been agreed, although there is no detail on how this should be funded. In addition, it was acknowledged that the current scale of emission reductions need to be enhanced. Although, there was likewise a lack of commitment on what scale of additional cuts will be needed and how they will be achieved. Possibly more importantly, there was no firm discussion on how, or even if, these commitments will be made legally binding in a similar way to the Kyoto Protocol. It was underlined by delegates though, that the Cancun agreement lays the groundwork for these firmer commitments.
While it took nearly the entire two weeks of the Cancun debate to reach these agreements, there seemed less controversy at this meeting than was the case at Copenhagen. Indeed, despite the long-standing disagreements between the west and developing nations – particularly the US and China – the only voice of dissent to the new agreement appeared to be Bolivia. Part of this possibly emanated from the acknowledgement among delegates that Cancun would not end with any legally binding commitments; there was less emphasis on this debate than was the case with Copenhagen.
Chris Huhne, UK energy and climate change secretary commented, "Cancun shows countries want to get on with getting an international deal...A global deal on climate change is now back on track. We've got to use this momentum to make urgent progress and lock down that deal – a deal that will benefit our environment and our economies."
However, Andy Atkins, Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, reacted, "The world needed strong and determined action to tackle climate change in Cancun - the outcome is a weak and ineffective agreement but at least it gives us a small and fragile lifeline."