The Parties agreed to continue negotiations with the aim of completing their work and ensuring there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods of the treaty, as African negotiators had demanded.
The conference also established a new Cancun Adaptation Framework that would allow for better planning and implementation of adaptation projects in developing countries through increased financial and technical support, including a clear process for continuing work on loss and damage.
It is also significant that Parties agreed to boost action to curb emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries by establishing a technology mechanism with a Technology Executive Committee and Climate Technology Centre and Network to increase technology cooperation to support action on adaptation and mitigation.
Just when participants began to fear another fiasco in Cancun, the wordings of the initial draft on the Kyoto Protocol were amended to accommodate concerns of Russia and Japan. The adopted text leaves them a possible route to escape extension of the Kyoto Protocol’s legally binding emission cuts, while strongly implying that the protocol has an effective future – a key demand of developing countries, according to analysts.
The Cancun Climate Change Conference encompassed the sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP) and the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), as well as the thirty-third sessions of both the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), and the fifteenth session of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and thirteenth session of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA).
The next Conference of the Parties is scheduled to take place in South Africa, from November 28 to December 9, 2011. ECA and ACPC are planning an Africa Day to further mobilize support behind the positions and concerns of the continent, as part of their support for the African common position.
An Africa Pavilion will also be established to give space to all African countries who may wish to hold targeted side-events at COP 17.
Source: ECA Press Release dated December 13, 2010.
