The United Nations Climate Change Conference which concluded in Cancun, Mexico, on Saturday. December 11, 2010, ended with “the adoption of a balanced package of decisions that set all governments more firmly on the path towards a low-emissions future and support enhanced action on climate change in the developing world,” said a UN announcement at the session’s conclusion.
At the conference, which began on Monday, November 29, 2010, Belize was represented by Minister of Natural Resources, Deputy Prime Minister Gaspar Vega; Belize’s Ambassador to the European Union, Joy Grant; Carlos Fuller, deputy director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center in Belize; Ann Gordon, Deputy Chief Meteorologist; and other members of Vega’s ministry.
Kenrick Leslie, PhD, the executive director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre in Belize, also attended the summit and highlighted to KREM the importance of technology transfer and the REDD-plus (a program through which countries can earn money for preserving their forests) to the Caribbean region. The developing world also needs funding to address adaptation issues, Leslie asserted.
“I am pleased to announce that we secured the Cancun Agreements, a set of balanced international decisions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) [the parent treaty for the Kyoto Protocol with 194 parties] which represent meaningful progress in our global response to climate change,” said a statement by US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton. “The Cancun Agreements represent a balanced and significant step forward. In the days and months ahead, the United States will work with our friends and partners to keep the world focused on this urgent challenge and to continue building on this progress,” the statement further said.
“Cancun has done its job,” the UN statement released after the conference declared. “The beacon of hope has been reignited and faith in the multilateral climate change process to deliver results has been restored,” UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres was quoted as saying in the UN press release issued at the close of the summit. “Nations have shown they can work together under a common roof, to reach consensus on a common cause. They have shown that consensus in a transparent and inclusive process can create opportunity for all,” she said.
The statement added that, “Nations launched a set of initiatives and institutions to protect the poor and the vulnerable from climate change and to deploy the money and technology that developing countries need to plan and build their own sustainable futures. And they agreed to launch concrete action to preserve forests in developing nations, which will increase going forward.”
The next conference is slated for 28 November to 9 December 2011 in South Africa.
Elements of the Cancun Agreements include:
– Industrialized country targets are officially recognised under the multilateral process and these countries are to develop low-carbon development plans and strategies and assess how best to meet them, including through market mechanisms, and to report their inventories annually.
– Developing country actions to reduce emissions are officially recognised under the multilateral process. A registry is to be set up to record and match developing country mitigation actions to finance and [provide] technology support from industrialized countries. Developing countries are to publish progress reports every two years.
– Parties meeting under the Kyoto Protocol agree to continue negotiations with the aim of completing their work and ensuring there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods of the treaty.
– The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanisms have been strengthened to drive more major investments and technology into environmentally sound and sustainable emission reduction projects in the developing world.
– Parties launched a set of initiatives and institutions to protect the vulnerable from climate change and to deploy the money and technology that developing countries need to plan and build their own sustainable futures.
– A total of $30 billion in fast-start finance from industrialized countries to support climate action in the developing world up to 2012 and the intention to raise $100 billion in long-term funds by 2020 is included in the decisions.
– In the field of climate finance, a process to design a Green Climate Fund under the Conference of the Parties, with a board with equal representation from developed and developing countries, is established.
– A new “Cancun Adaptation Framework” is established to allow better planning and implementation of adaptation projects in developing countries through increased financial and technical support, including a clear process for continuing work on loss and damage.
– Governments agree to boost action to curb emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries with technological and financial support.
– Parties have established a technology mechanism with a Technology Executive Committee and Climate
Technology Centre and Network to increase technology cooperation to support action on adaptation and mitigation.
(Currency in US dollars.)