Post-Cancun: The Glass Half Full

Alex Stark is a program assistant at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, working on the Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict Program. She attended the Cancun negotiations as part of the Adopt a Negotiator team.

After a long year of work, as well as two weeks of intense negotiations in Cancun itself, parties to the convention were about to defy almost every expectation about the conference's results held by the global media, international civil society and even the negotiators themselves. Applause, standing ovations, cheers and even some teary eyes followed each speech, as country after country rose to demand that the Conference of the Parties (COP) accept the final negotiating text as an official decision.

The Cancun Agreements, which were officially adopted around 4:00 am, are not particularly earth-shattering in their scope or ambition. Negotiators did manage to agree to establish a Green Climate Fund to finance adaptation and mitigation projects in developing countries, technical bodies for technology transfer and adaptation and a program to prevent deforestation in developing nations. The decisions represent only small but tangible steps towards what many hope will be more robust action on climate change next year in Durban, South Africa.

There was also an agreement on the way that countries can inscribe their own emissions reduction targets and on transparency measures for both developed and developing countries, an issue that threatened to derail the entire process even up through Friday afternoon. Yet there was no agreement on what form a legally binding emissions reduction treaty will take, nor was there any kind of consensus on how the Kyoto Protocol will continue after its first commitment period ends in 2012, leaving a great deal to be discussed before the 2011 COP in South Africa.

Yet the outcome was greeted with outright elation at the negotiations, as country after country raised its voice to acknowledge that the agreement was not ideal, but was the best that negotiators could come up with given the current circumstances (practically a ringing endorsement in UN terms).
Even the Alliance of Small-Island States, usually a bugbear of the climate negotiations, endorsed the decision, and Algeria spoke on behalf of the group of African states, saying "Africa has spoken with one voice," and "would like to support the text." And head delegate for the United States Todd Stern, usually bland in his public statements, proclaimed "let's get this deal done."

The Cancun Agreements are notable not so much for their actual accomplishments as for the unexpectedly positive atmosphere that they created inside of the UN negotiations themselves.

The outcome of the 2009 COP in Copenhagen threatened to unravel the 18-year long UNFCCC process, when countries were unable to agree even to a non-binding outcome in the Copenhagen Accord, falling far short of the high expectations for a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol that would bind every country in the world. Worse than the outcome however was the atmosphere of the negotiations at the Copenhagen Conference, when heads of state from the most powerful countries thrashed out an agreement behind closed doors in the last 24 hours of the negotiations. Developing countries denounced the agreement as undemocratic, non-transparent and unfair, and any trust that had existed between developed and developing countries was effectively shattered.

The Cancun talks restored this sense of trust amongst the parties, an outcome that was not necessarily expected. Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres welcomed the agreements, saying "Cancun has done its job… nations have shown they can work together under a common roof, to reach consensus on a common cause. They have shown that consensus in a transparent and inclusive process can create opportunity for all."

These were not empty words, but a testament that the cheering on the plenary floor bore witness to. Much of the credit for this accomplishment goes to the Mexican Presidency of this year's COP, headed by foreign minister Patricia Espinosa.

While the Danish presidency was accused of masterminding the closed-door "secret text" negotiations, the Mexicans affirmed over and over that the negotiations would continue to be transparent and that no secret text existed. Indian minister Jairam Ramesh even went so far as to call Espinosa a "goddess" in the final, tipsy hours of the talks in honor of her exemplary leadership.

In an atmosphere where the smallest rumor or media report can shift the dynamics of the talks and cause mistrust between parties to blossom, Espinosa's leadership played an essential role in keeping the talks on track.

The restoration of trust between parties is the most important outcome of the Cancun negotiations. The Cancun Agreements are not likely to spark a surge of confidence in the UN process in the real world outside of the talks, particularly in the United States where critics of the process are usually motivated by partisan or ideological aims rather than any legitimate concerns about the UNFCCC setup. And NGOs and the global media will criticize the agreements for a lack of ambition and equity, and rightfully so.

But the Green Climate Fund as well as the other institutions established by the Agreements will provide an opportunity to nurture this trust, as developed and developing countries follow through on their promises and show that it is possible to negotiate with one another in good faith.
The agreements have also created an atmosphere of trust that will be essential on the road to the next talks in Durban and to a binding emissions regime, and should provide the grounds for hope for all of us that the multilateral UN process may yet be able to head off the most devastating effects of climate change in the future.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

By Alex Stark:
Special to CBSNews.com