by Guest

contribution by Kirsty Wright

After two long and dispiriting weeks, the Cancun climate talks drew to a close in the early hours of Saturday morning. Expectations for the Cancun meeting were always low after the disaster that was Copenhagen.

So what did this supposed “deal”, that lead some to calls of “we can can can in Cancun” as the talks drew to a close, actually produce?



» What we have essentially ended up with is a list of non binding promises, that leave the World Bank, one of the world’s most discredited and undemocratic institutions, that even last year beat its own records on climate wrecking fossil fuel lending, as the trustee of a much heralded new ‘Green Climate Fund’.

» And that any money the World Bank holds will simply be reinvested into the most profitable areas, all too often, fossil fuel lending that, as even recent history tells us, will only further exacerbate the global warming we are trying to halt.

» Meanwhile the pledged emissions cuts, which would lead a 4 degree global temperature rise at best, sit outside the only legally binding framework on emissions cuts that currently exists, meaning no one is obliged to follow through with them.

» At the same time, this leaves the Kyoto Protocol, the only existing legally binding framework within the UN framework on cutting emissions, to be hung out and left to die. This supposed ‘deal’ is little more than a betrayal of the people who are already being impacted by the horrors of a changing climate they played no part in causing.

» Another nail in the coffin has been the Wikileaks revelations that rich countries are using climate finance as a bribe to get developing countries to agree to weak rich targets for reducing carbon emissions. Continued pressure by rich countries for funds to be channelled through the World Bank, an institution deeply mistrusted by developing countries due to it undemocratic structure, its history of damaging projects, and its role as a major financer for fossil fuel based climate destroying development, have knowingly created a deeper divide in the negotiations.

The politics at play in Cancun has been more attune to children in a playground than countries serious about averting a climate crisis. First, the Mexican government handpicked 25 heads of state, like sides in a lunchtime football game. Most refused the invite.

In yet another bold move from the Bolivian government, Evo Morales, one of the champions of a strong just deal amongst the developing country groupings, decided to come to the party anyway, without having an invite, breaking the usual diplomatic protocols.

Before the talks had even started, the United States had already threatened they would walk out if they didn’t get their own way, like the spoilt child. Japan stated that they didn’t not want to sign a new commitment period under their native Kyoto Protocol, shortly followed by other countries like Russia who, said that if Japan didn’t agree to the second commitment period then neither would they. So there.

In spite of strong pressure from the US, some developing countries and campaigners attempted to cling to the ‘two track’ system, determined to keep at least the already inadequate Kyoto Protocol, that they are aware is riddled with carbon trading loopholes. Why? Because they know that things have already sunk so low and that this was the only legally binding document on emissions cuts on the table, that also states the need for developing countries to take the lead in cutting emissions.

Cancun’s main success has been to lower expectations to the point where the delegates feel so little hope and expectation that people are feel compelled to celebrate a document that is, at best, little more than a list of hollow promises that countries have no legal obligation to fulfil.

This is hardly a reason to be cheerful in the face of a climate crisis that is already killing hundreds of thousands of people a year.

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Kirsty Wright is a climate campaigner at WDM