Cancún Climate Failure?

Exhausted delegates stood to applaud their success in reaching agreement at the end of an overnight session in Cancún early on Saturday morning. They saw it as a triumph after the shambles of last year’s failed talks in Copenhagen. Conference president Patricia Espinosa called it “a new era of international cooperation on climate.” But in the cold light of morning, many will agree that their diplomatic triumph offered little tangible progress to further reduce emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. During two weeks of talks nobody upped their promises to curb emissions.