Media reports from December’s U.N.-sponsored talks on climate change in Durban frequently describe it as accomplishing little, as an overall failure to solve climate issues on an international level. Yet other observers claim the conference produced a package of agreements  “essential for any hope of a meaningful contribution to mitigation and adaptation to climate change out of this forum, but it also avoided a disaster that would have sent this process back to where it started in 1992.”

Andrew Light, director of the Center for Global Ethics at George Mason University and a fellow at Center for American Progress, continues his analysis of the achievements of Durban by citing six key changes in the design of international climate agreements:

•  The Kyoto Protocol and its component parts will continue.
•  The Green Climate Fund, along with it other components of the Cancun Agreements like the new Clean Technology Center and Network  is no longer simply a concept but is now a reality.
• There is now a work plan in place to bridge the gap between parties’ unilateral pledges to reduce their emissions by 2020 and the actions needed to realize a path to limiting temperature rise to 2 degree Celsius.
• Durban resulted in a process to produce a legal instrument to replace both the Cancun Agreements and the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.
• Durban tore down the firewall between developed and developing countries. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “The deal … ends  this differentiation between the developed and the developing [countries] in terms of what we all have to do to meet this global challenge.”
• By requiring the new Durban Platform to produce a legal agreement that applies to all parties equally, the obstacle of a 1997 U.S. Senate resolution rejecting consideration of a climate treaty that divided responsibilities between developed and developing countries was overcome.