The deal is done (Image: Rajesh Jantilal/AFP/Getty Images) China and the US are among the nations that have committed to 2020 targets (Image: AP/Press Association Images)

In the early hours of Sunday morning an agreement was struck on climate change here in Durban. European nations are convinced it commits China, India, Brazil and other major developing countries – not to mention the US – to accept legally binding targets on their greenhouse gas emissions that will come into force from 2020.


But the intervening years could set the world on track for more than 3 °C of global warming.

British climate change secretary Chris Huhne called the agreement a significant step forward. “This is the first time we have seen major economies, normally cautious, commit to take action demanded by the science,” he said.

In return for the promises, the European Union agreed to accept a second phase of the Kyoto protocol, which limits its own emissions in the intervening years, even though few other industrialised nations agreed to join.

Poor nations on board

The deal is a triumph for the leading personality here in Durban, the EU environment commissioner Connie Hedegaard. She assembled a powerful coalition behind EU proposals, which included African states, the world’s poorest nations in Asia and Africa, island states and major players like Brazil and hosts South Africa. It held together for two weeks and effectively forced the Chinese and US to accept future legal targets.

If those targets are agreed by the promised deadline of 2015, that will be a major breakthrough that rewrites the rulebook of the global effort to curb climate change. In the past, developing nations have been left without targets.

But the language of the agreement is opaque. The words “legally binding” do not appear. After a great deal of haggling that went on to the final moments, the actual commitment is to a “protocol, legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force”.

And the deal is a post-dated cheque. 2020 is a long way off, and nobody agreed any new quantified emissions targets. Even if all goes to plan, any new targets won’t kick in for eight years. Scientists here say the intervening decade is critical to arresting global warming and turning the world’s energy infrastructure decisively towards low-carbon energy sources.

On track for more than 3 °C

As the director of the UN Environment Programme Achim Steiner left Durban, hours before the conclusion, he said: “I can’t see anything in these negotiations that will prevent warming beyond 2 °C. To do that will require the world’s carbon dioxide emissions to peak by 2020, but it looks as if we may not even have an agreement in force until 2020.”

Christian Aid said: “[The deal] saves the talks but endangers people living in poverty.” Oxfam said the world was “sleepwalking towards four degrees warming”.

What happens between now and 2020? In the past two rounds of annual negotiations, at Copenhagen and Cancún, most of the world’s major economies have pledged voluntary targets – including Brazil, China and the US – mostly not to cut emissions, but to moderate the increase as their economies grows. Countries to have adopted such voluntary targets include Brazil, China and the US.

But analysis by independent climate modellers at Climate Analytics in Potsdam, Germany, say they contain loopholes and uncertainties. As a result, they say, the world is still on a track for more than 3 °C of global warming.

In the final hours of the extended Durban talks, European negotiators introduced a clause encouraging other countries to up their pledges before 2020, and allowing for the UN to find new ways of curbing emissions – such as agreeing controls on international aircraft and shipping, which are not currently covered by any targets, legal or otherwise. A splinter group of nations is to discuss these options and report back next year.