ANALYSIS:Can Cancun eclipse Copenhagen? Climate summit in final stage

By Chris Cermak Dec 7, 2010, 11:19 GMT

Cancun, Mexico - Ministers gathering this week in Mexico are hoping that a UN summit on climate change will lead to the kind of concrete progress that eluded world leaders one year ago in Copenhagen.

Environmentalists seem to agree that there is a more hopeful tone at this year's talks in Cancun, Mexico, which began on November 29 and will reach their peak this week with the arrival of ministers from more than 190 countries.

'Over the past week, we have seen a vastly improved atmosphere in these talks than what we've seen over the past year,' said Wendel Trio, Greenpeace International's director of climate policy.

That in itself is no small feat, given where the last UN summit ended. The December 2009 Copenhagen talks, which had been billed as the summit where world leaders would finally agree a new global treaty that could help curb global warming, collapsed in the final days.

Leaders at the Copenhagen summit could not agree to approve any final text. Instead, governments were given the option of signing up to the Copenhagen Accord, a non-binding document where each laid out what they were willing to do to lower their own greenhouse-gas emissions that are blamed for global warming.

Mexico has so far received plaudits for running an open process that has kept the mood at the Cancun talks more positive. By contrast, the Danish leadership was heavily criticized in Copenhagen for facilitating major global powers to negotiate behind closed doors, a move that irked many developing countries.

'After the breakdown in Copenhagen, countries have been particularly sensitive about how the negotiations are run,' said Jennifer Morgan of the US-based World Resources Institute. 'Mexico has made real strides in rebuilding trust, which has not gone unnoticed.'

The question is whether that trust will continue through the second week. Environment ministers were to arrive in Cancun by Tuesday, replacing their lower-level negotiators and hoping to wrap up a deal by Friday night.

The improved atmosphere has also been helped by sharply lower expectations. Cancun has been seen as a rebuilding process, with negotiators making clear from the outset that there is no hope of agreeing a new global treaty.

Instead, governments are looking to set into motion a series of mechanisms that could have a practical effect on curbing climate change. Negotiators are close to deals that include setting up a Green Fund to channel climate-aid to the poor, technology transfers, and an incentive programme to cut back on deforestation.

In other words, where Copenhagen failed by aiming for an over-arching global treaty, the buzzword in Cancun is 'building blocks.'

But there are some major hurdles that could yet derail the talks. Those hurdles are part of an ongoing spat between wealthy and emerging economies over who should do the most to tackle global warming.

The United States and others are pressing for a 'balanced package' that would also include progress on some of the stickier points that are dearer to wealthy countries.

The US has pushed China to open up its actions on climate change to more international scrutiny, and also wants the emissions cuts promised in the Copenhagen Accord to be anchored in the United Nations process by the end of this summit.

'All of this has to move forward on a genuinely balanced basis,' Todd Stern, who is heading a US negotiating team that includes Energy Secretary Steven Chu, told reporters Monday.

Possibly the biggest pitfall to a deal is the Kyoto Protocol, a legally-binding treaty agreed in 1997 that for the first time directed industrial powers to lower their greenhouse-gas emissions. Kyoto did not include emerging powers like China and India, a failure that prompted the United States to never join.

In Cancun, developing countries have said they won't move towards any new treaty until members of the Kyoto Protocol agree to extend the treaty beyond 2012.

That could be extremely difficult, as major powers like Japan, Russia and Canada have refused to extend Kyoto without the participation of the US and China, which emit about 40 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases.

'Arriving ministers can breathe life into the Kyoto Protocol,' said former Irish president Mary Robinson. 'But it is vital that these efforts do not suck the political momentum from progress on other issues.'