THE Durban summit produced an unexpectedly strong commitment among participants to reach a global climate-change agreement. But there is no guarantee a pact will materialise and present measures do little to convince that China and the world’s other big polluters are managing to successfully combat carbon emissions.
Negotiators at the UN-backed meeting in South Africa said they would start work on a new legally binding climate deal, to be effective by 2020, which, crucially, will require developing as well as developed countries to reduce carbon emissions significantly. Just getting the US, China, India and other big emitters to consider an all-embracing pact has been heralded as a huge achievement, given the discord that characterised the run-up to the summit.
The dispute centred on the long-running debate over who should pay most to tackle man-made climate change. Poorer, industrialising countries are eager that developed countries, responsible for most emissions so...