The UN climate talks ended yesterday morning with small incremental progress, barely enough to save the foundering multilateral process, amid simmering rifts among major carbon-emitting nations.
Environment ministers and delegates from nearly 200 countries worked around the clock on the last day of the talks and eventually managed to adopt a package of decisions called the Cancun Agreement.
Given the limited expectations before the talks, the weak, non-binding deal was generally seen as 'balanced' and 'better than expected' by delegates and environmentalists. The deal made limited advances on largely secondary issues such as the establishment of a climate fund, technology transfer and forests.
But it failed to close gaps between rich and poor nations and break the impasse on issues such as mitigation targets and the future of the Kyoto Protocol. Instead, the countries agreed to leave challenging issues open and try to hammer out a legally binding treaty tackling global warming until another round of climate talks in South Africa next year.
China, the world's largest carbon emitter, hailed the two-week negotiations as a success as they has averted a replay of the Copenhagen debacle last year, where world leaders failed to cut a meaningful deal amid high expectations.
Xie Zhenhua , China's climate chief and deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, approved of the deal 'While there are some shortcomings, we are satisfied,' he said.
Huang Huikang , the foreign ministry's climate representative, said China had made significant contributions to move the talks forward, including compromises on transparency issues in a bid to strengthen solidarity among the developing nations bloc.