Climate Talks End in Victory or Defeat or Inevitable Compromise, Depending on Your Point of View

The 2-page agreement (supposedly - the official text is not yet publicly available) commits all parties, including developing countries, to adopt binding emissions reduction targets by 2020 (see here). At least some parties hailed the agreement as a breakthrough, while others blasted it for transferring cuts from richer to poorer countries, and environmental groups lamented the failure to commit to early emissions cuts (see here and here).

From my perspective, getting China and India - two of the world's four leading emitters (in nominal terms) - on board with mandatory emissions cuts was an important achievement, and necessary to ensure that global emissions start trending downward. It is important to bear in mind, however, that this is just an agreement to take some action in the future. The actual commitments are yet to come.

I'm not so disturbed as some observers by the 2020 starting point for new binding emissions-reduction targets. For one thing, it's probably going to take at least that long to put large-emitting developing countries in a position, economically, institutionally, and technologically, to make verifiable cuts. For another, the 2020 start date does not prevent the attainment of large-scale cuts in carbon emissions between now and 2050; it just steepens the necessary reductions curve. Nor does it undo commitments countries or confederations, such as the EU, have made to reduce emissions between now and 2020.

However, this new agreement should not be confused with real action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is merely represents a more or less credible (depending on which party you're talking about) commitment to reduce emissions in the future. Between now and at least 2020 (and perhaps much longer after that), we should keep our eyes where the real action is, in Europe and California, which are leading the way as carbon-cutting entrepreneurs. Whether or not more countries follow their leads may be a more reliable signal of trends in global climate policy than any piece of paper the climatocrats signed in Durban.

I will post the agreement, when it becomes available.