Cancun Agreements Must Be Judged a Success. By Robert Stavins, Belfer Center, 12/13/10. “The international climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, have concluded, and despite the gloom-and-doom predictions that dominated the weeks and months leading up to Cancun, the Sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-16) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) [PDF, 25 pp] must be judged a success. It represents a set of modest steps forward. Nothing more should be expected from this process…
The Cancun Agreements -- as the two key documents, Outcome of the AWG-LCA [PDF, 29 ppp] and Outcome of the AWG-KP [PDF, 2 pp] are called -- do just what was needed, namely build on the structure of the Copenhagen Accord with a balanced package that takes meaningful steps toward implementing the key elements of the Accord. The delegates in Cancun succeeded in writing and adopting an agreement that assembles pledges of greenhouse gas (GHG) cuts by all of the world’s major economies, launches a fund to help the most vulnerable countries, and avoids some political landmines that could have blown up the talks, namely decisions on the (highly uncertain) future of the Kyoto Protocol.” Robert N. Stavins is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, Director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, and Chairman of the Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Group.
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