Another modest step at Cancun climate talks

Some countries' resistance to the Kyoto Protocol had been an obstacle during the final week of negotiations. However, diplomats were able to find a compromise. Nations endorsed compromise texts drawn up by the Mexican hosts, despite objections from Bolivia. Cancun produced almost global consensus on words that spell out a need to step up, urgently, action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The package known as the Cancún Agreements gives the more than 190 countries participating in the conference another year to decide whether to extend the frayed Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement that requires most wealthy nations to trim their emissions while providing assistance to developing countries to pursue a cleaner energy future. The agreement is not a legally binding treaty, but the success of these talks allows the process to seek a more robust accord at next year's climate conference in Durban, South Africa.

The agreement "affirms that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time". It "recognises that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required according to science", and that countries should "take urgent action" to meet the goal of holding the increase in global temperatures below 2C, measured against pre-industrial times.

It establishes mechanisms for transferring funds from rich countries to poor and helping them to spend it well on climate protection, acknowledging the rich world's historical responsibility for climate change. It sets out parameters for reducing emissions from deforestation and for transferring clean technology from the west to the rest,

The US partly achieved its main priorities - giving the World Bank first go at running the big new fund, and having some degree of international monitoring on China's emissions - but the wording also allows China and other developing countries to escape with their sovereignty, as they see it, unaffected.

In addition, Japan and Russia have been given a way to slide away from the Kyoto Protocol while maintaining the pledges they made around the Copenhagen summit.

The agreement sets up a new fund to help poor countries adapt to climate changes, creates new mechanisms for transfer of clean energy technology, provides compensation for the preservation of tropical forests and strengthens the emissions reductions pledges that came out of the last United Nations climate change meeting in Copenhagen last year

Delegates from island states and the least-developed countries warmly welcomed the pact because it would start the flow of billions of dollars to assist them to adopt cleaner energy systems and adapt to inevitable changes in the climate, like sea rise and drought. However, it left unresolved where the $100 billion in annual climate-related aid that the wealthy nations have promised to provide would come from.

The success of this year's conference was in large measure attributable to the modesty of its goals. "It has been characterized by small steps. And I'd rather see this small step here in Cancún than the international community tripping over itself in an effort to make a large leap."

In all, the success of the Cancún talks was a shot in the arm for a process that some had likened to a "zombie, stumbling aimlessly but refusing to die".