CANCUN (Mexico), Dec 11: The UN Climate Change Conference ended here on Saturday morning with the adoption of a balanced package of decisions that aims to set up a “Green Climate Fund”, protect tropical forests and encourage nations to share clean energy technologies.

Despite protests from Bolivia and Cuba who pointed out that the deal was just not ambitious enough and “went back to the Copenhagen Accord”, the package, dubbed the “Cancun Agreements”, was welcomed by the other parties in the final plenary.

The US, which had earlier been blocking progress on the climate deal, was cheered when it accepted the agreement. Tod Stern, the lead negotiator for the US announced: “Let’s get this deal done and put the world on a path to a low-emissions and more sustainable future.”

According to the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres, “Governments have given a clear signal that they are headed towards a low-emissions future together, they have agreed to be accountable to each other for the actions they take to get there, and they have set it out in a way which encourages countries to be more ambitious over time.”

Many compromises had to be made to clinch the deal in the final hours of Friday night as ministers rushed from one group to another to broker an agreement. “We had to give up a lot of what we wanted,” said a member of the Pakistani delegation, “but so did everyone else.”

According to Greenpeace International, “Cancun may have saved the process but it did not yet save the climate”. There was real danger that if some sort of agreement had not been reached in Cancun, the entire UNFCCC process, which includes 192 countries of the world, could have died out.

“Some called the process dead but governments have shown that they can cooperate and can move forward to achieve a global deal.”

On the key issue of climate finance, governments agreed to establish a climate fund to deliver the billions needed for the developing world to deal with climate change and stop deforestation. But they didn’t establish any way of providing that money.

NGOs say more would have been accomplished if it had not been for the negative influence of the United States, Russia and Japan. The latter two made several statements against the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, while the US came to Mexico with weak commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite being the world’s highest historical emitter, the US watered down several important areas of agreement.

The talks in Cancun began with low expectations and the outcome has certainly exceeded the expectations. It will give business more of the certainty it needs to invest in a low carbon economy and collaboration should now begin in the areas of finance, technology, adaptation, and forest protection.

However, the big issue of emission reduction (and the legal commitments to make them real) has not been resolved here. It will be tackled at a later date, probably at the next climate change talks to be held in South Africa in December 2011.

“This is not the end, but it is a new beginning. It is not what is ultimately required but it is the essential foundation on which to
build greater, collective ambition,” said Ms Figueres.