The ghosts of Copenhagen and the Kyoto Protocol

Cancun: The ghosts of Copenhagen and the Kyoto Protocol

19 December 2010 - It is a pity the Maltese government did not rise to the occasion and deliver a statement in Parliament on the Cancun Climate Summit the same way that the Prime Minister normally does when he returns from a summit abroad.

To be fair, he promised to arrange for the Minister of Resources to do so when Parliament reconvenes in the second week of next month, but it would have been timelier at this juncture, even more so when Tuesday happened to be the day the House rose for the Christmas recess.

At this stage I do not intend to go into the argument I raised elsewhere as to whether Cancun was a success, a qualified success or just better than a failure, particularly when the logical question is bound to arise: compared to what?

Today I intend to limit myself to the likely future of the Kyoto Protocol and the prospects ahead, all the more so given that the summit set out to exorcise the ghosts of Copenhagen. A process of negotiations that this time last year had been characterised by mistrust and confusion only to end in acrimony. Many were of the opinion that not only were developed countries treated more and more leniently in Cancun reaching almost a level similar to that of developing countries; but also that developing countries were also asked to increase their obligations to be more and more like developed countries. {continued}