By Ben Webster
CANCUN - The Mexican hosts of the sixteenth annual UN Climate Change Conference were determined that Cancun would not share Copenhagen's fate by becoming synonymous with failure.
They persuaded 192 out of 193 countries to accept the "Cancun agreement" by the simple trick of aiming for the lowest common denominator - the agreement was secured by deferring decisions on all of the most contentious issues.
There were no improvements on any of the emissions pledges made by 80 countries under the Copenhagen Accord, but they have at least been "anchored" in the UN process. There is still no guarantee that they will be honoured, but some countries may feel under slightly more pressure to deliver.
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Cancun Has Solidified Deadlock Over Post-Kyoto Treaty
By Benny Peiser, The Global Warming Policy Foundation
The UN climate summit shows that there is no prospect whatever for a global and legally binding climate treaty.
All that the Cancun summit has done is to bless, formally, the Copenhagen accord, and roll it forward for another year.
Despite all the usual rhetoric by politicians and campaigners, the fact remains that yet another attempt has failed to reach a legally binding agreement.
Dr Pangloss Alive And Well At Cancún
By Philip Stott, Global Warming Policy Foundation
When it comes to UN climate conferences, I am constantly flabbergasted by the breathless naivety and forced optimism of certain politicians and environmental reporters, not to mention of green activists. It is as if Voltaire's very own Dr. Pangloss had set sail to Cancún with Candide. Despite having become a syphilitic beggar, Dr. Pangloss remains firm in his belief that "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds", explaining that syphilis "… was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease, which contaminates the source of generation, and frequently impedes propagation itself, and is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal."
'Global warming' was likewise reduced to a clapped-out beggar last year in frozen Copenhagen. Yet, in the best of all possible worlds, this Danish debacle is now seen as a good thing, because it brought a sense of reality to the delegates in Cancún, who still, of course, neatly proceeded to avoid any legally-binding commitments on emissions, and on pretty well anything else for that matter, putting off the whole charade until next December in sunny Durban, South Africa. My, how this ship of fools traverses the globe - Candide and Gulliver have nothing on them! And, it is worth remembering that Cancún was the 16th Conference of the Parties no less.
Even more difficult to comprehend, however, is the desperate desire for a post-Kyoto Protocol. After all, it is not even as if the Protocol reduced carbon emissions in any meaningful way. In truth, it appears that emissions actually rose after the Protocol was put in place on December 11, 1997. The average annual growth in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 50 years (as measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, in parts per million by volume - ppmv) was around 1.37 ppmv. In contrast, the average since 1997and Kyoto has risen to about 1.97 ppmv. So much then for the value of internationally-binding protocols.
