To much applause from those assembled, early on Saturday morning (11 December) a deal on climate change was agreed here in Cancun. Whilst the content of the agreement will scarcely scratch the surface of the climate crisis, the fact that agreement was possible is remarkable following the bad faith and mistrust engendered by Copenhagen just a year ago.
In the end, the only country that looked like blocking a deal was Bolivia, but on the grounds that the agreement was not ambitious enough rather than simply being obstructive. Japan looked a threat for a while, but a series of phone calls to the PM from other leaders, including President Calderon of Mexico and David Cameron, fixed the problem. The country that made the agreement possible was Mexico, whose minster, Patricia Espinosa, consulted endlessly with everyone together with her huge team, including the President.
Some have accused the agreement as papering over the cracks of fundamental differences between nations. But this is true of any multilateral agreement - everyone has to compromise and in Cancun everyone did compromise in an open and transparent process.
At best, this meeting was intended to break the logjam of mistrust amongst nations and define ways forward to a comprehensive agreement in Durban next year. This it has done.
Important deals on substance were also made here. A green fund is established that will help pay for developing countries to both reduce their emissions and adapt to climate change. A scheme to save tropical forest is established, with excellent safeguards for biodiversity and the rights of indigenous people - the RSPB can claim a share of the credit for this. Much more work is still to be done on these matters but the show is on the road again and confidence is high.
It is strangely silent here now. The players in the big UN circus have decamped leaving a few bemused Mexican tourists in our vast hotel complex. The shell shocked iguanas are coming out of their holes to their place in the sun and the caimans are again gliding around the ponds.
John
I am very disappointed to see that the RSPB are cheerleading the great Climate Change delusion.
When many of our cherished birds of all species are dying from the cold, the RSPB is giving us the politics of Global Warming.
How ever did birds evolve to today with 20 times the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere than today. How ever the British Birds survive the Medieval Warm Period or the Holocene and Roman Warm Periods which were over 1 deg hotter than today for longer than 10 or 20 years.
To real biologists, CO2 at higher levels in the atmosphere is just what this world needs becuase the average CO2 in History is well over 1000ppm (not the 390ppm today).
Taxing Carbon Dioxide is racketeering masquerading as environmentalism.