Modest measures secure limited climate conviction

The UN’s COP16  conference on climate change, held at Mexico’s idyllic beach resort of Cancun, could claim a victory for setting in motion new climate initiatives after previous agreements had otherwise all but stalled.

With issues of carbon and emissions trading on the table, expectations were for further deadlock. And it may have been the case were it not for Mexico’s foreign minister, Patricia Espinosa. Her master stroke, of pulling all delegates away from stagnating private talks to meet together late on the Saturday night, effectively turned the tables. With nations combined, delegates succumbed to what has been described as a wave of euphoria, making vital concessions that allowed new motions to be carried through.

Though avoiding the big issues, rich nations did commit to contributing to a climate change fund, the result of which will see $100bn a year raised by 2020 to help tackle the problem. There were also breakthroughs on the REDD+ incentives to help reduce the destruction of rainforests, which again crucially saw more prosperous nations committing funds. Finally, a commitment to allowing a maximum rise of two degrees Celsius was also agreed, alongside more minor agreements to improve areas such as transparency and communication.

Though meagre, these measures are significant. Monetary commitments will prove a crucial step to funding the necessary measures to reduce climate change. Meanwhile the drive to reduce deforestation holds the potential to reduce global carbon emissions by as much as 15 percent.

The greatest success of Cancun however is that deals were struck at all. Based on the failure of previous conferences and with nations embattled in their own personal economic crises, the ability for all to see the bigger picture and take action on it deserves some applauding.  

Aim low
The disastrous summit of 2009 in Copenhagen had set the bench mark for Cancún at rock bottom. Such low expectation appears to have affected delegates as the initial agreements reached triggered a domino effect of objections collapsing and concessions being breached.
 
The success of the Cancun conference has been attributed to developed nations’ effective quieting of the dissent of some socialist Latin American countries. Climate change proves a tricky issue for Latin America, as it tries to match its aims of further economic development while ensuring environmental sustainability. The apparent unwillingness of the US, China and Europe to commit to measures in the past has therefore smacked somewhat of hypocrisy.

Bolivia in particular has stood by the viewpoint that safeguarding the world from climate change is incompatible with capitalism as it is now. Its representatives remained as one of only a few voices of dissent at how the end of the conference, with most nations from the region content that developed nations were finally ready to stump up the case to stop climate change.  

Even some of the failures of the conference – notably the absence of an emissions agreement to succeed the Kyoto protocol or establishing a price for carbon trading – have been heralded as potential successes. Less formal arrangements on emissions have seen nations step back from their usual global political positions and the potential exists that this laissez-faire approach may also yield greater cuts than formalised agreements.

In times of unprecedented global budget crises, the chances are that the huge sums discussed at Cancun will face an inevitable knobbling. Yet what can be taken from Cancún is that inclusion is the way forward. Copenhagen failed because the old cliques refused to acknowledge the demands of smaller and less prosperous nations – invariably the ones hit hardest by climate change. In Mexico, Mrs Espinosa levelled the playing field. And that was what it took to break the ice.