The Durban Platform: Climate Change Progress or Stalling?

Negotiators in Durban, South Africa extended their annual conference on climate change 24 hours beyond the expected close of debate in an effort to find a last minute deal on carbon emissions. Discussions appeared to pay off as representatives from almost 200 countries announced a last-minute compromise yesterday morning. While not yet proposing any legally-binding targets to reduce carbon emissions, the Durban Platform lays out a plan to reach such an agreement by 2015.

The agreement also fleshed out several details from the unfinished talks in Cancun last year. Among these were rules for establishing a global climate fund, a strategy for combating deforestation, the structure of an international network of technology centers, and the guidelines for a system to increase transparency in tracking the carbon-emitting activities of nations.

The bigger challenge centered on the agreement to seek a deal for universal emission cutting within the next four years. However, many environmental researchers and advocates warn that this deal may not yield significant results. The language is broad and vague, not specifying if developing and developed nations will have to agree to the same cuts to emissions. It is likely that nations such as China and India will have very different ideas about what will be acceptable targets than the European Union and other Western nations. Effectively, the Durban Platform pushed off an agreement on this issue, long the biggest sticking point in the climate change debates, for four more years. Others also worry that by the time an agreement will have to take effect, 2020, global greenhouse gas emissions will be far beyond sustainable levels.

The progress made on the global Green Climate Fund and the creation of technology centers, which will aid developing nations and support their pursuit of sustainable development, is an encouraging outcome of the talks in Durban. However, much of the hardest work remains. Global leaders need to get serious on agreements to cut emissions, before irreparable damage to the ozone layer is done. Rather than dragging their heels, American politicians should be leading the way by agreeing to curb our own carbon emissions and investing more in green technology. We cannot continue to postpone progress on climate change for one more day, let alone four more years.