Durban “road map” points to 2020
11 Dec 2011, 9:45 PM
Eleanor Johnstone
Delegates at Durban have reached a legally-binding agreement after the longest debate period in two decades of UN climate talks. It is the first time that leading emitters China, India and the US have jointly signed a climate agreement.
No reform targets have been agreed to, however, and negotiations towards a more explicit emissions-cutting agreement await the 2012 conference in Quatar.
“The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action” is primarily “a road map” to further negotiations for another agreement in 2015, Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam has said, and differences between leading emitters remain on the table.
“What people had hoped for was to look at the Kyoto Protocol and make revisions so it would be more effectively applied, especially by those powers that didn’t ratify it initially. But that couldn’t be finalised, and differences remain among some of the world powers,” Aslam explained. Instead, the Kyoto Protocol was extended for another five years while member countries deliberate a “global, legally-binding instrument” to be voted on in 2015 and, if approved, ratified in 2020.
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