Cancun reignites climate talks flame

A climate deal reached in Mexico has revived faith in UN-backed talks after last year’s debacle in Copenhagen, but environmentalists warn the new measures are far less than what the planet needs.

After two exhausting weeks meeting in the resort of Cancun, more than 190 nations hammered out an accord that puts into operation a new climate fund administering billions of dollars in promised aid to poor nations.

Negotiators gave Mexico high marks for guiding the talks, after fears that last year’s chaotic summit and vague agreement in Copenhagen had irreparably eroded public interest in climate action.

“You have restored the confidence of the world community in multilateralism,” Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa, even likening her to “a goddess” for her diplomacy.

EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, a Dane who helped lead the Copenhagen summit, described Espinosa as “skillful and clever.” Hedegaard earlier worried that climate diplomacy would “turn into Doha,” the all-but-dead talks on a global economic liberalization agreement.

But even though the Cancun talks reached an agreement, they did not take up some of the most critical issues on climate change.

“Cancun may have saved the process but it did not yet save the climate,” said Greenpeace International’s climate policy director Wendel Trio. Oxfam International executive director Jeremy Hobbs said that the negotiations “have resuscitated the UN talks and put them on a road to recovery.”

AFP