Was the 14-day COP17 gathering in Durban a success or a failure? This question does not do justice to the intricate and critically important discussions that took place at the UN Conference in South Africa’s port city during recent weeks.
Was the 14-day COP17 gathering in Durban a success or a failure? This question does not do justice to the intricate and critically important discussions that took place at the UN Conference in South Africa’s port city during recent weeks.
Related story: What are the outcomes of the Durban climate change talks?
The question is simplistic, but it nevertheless frames exactly what most people want to know – was it successful in reaching an agreement to stop global warming or not? This very straightforward question has, unfortunately, many different answers, depending on who you speak to.
For example, the President of COP17 and international affairs minister of the host country, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, addressed delegates in her closing statement and said, “I applaud you for what you have been able to accomplish here in Durban”.
She said the negotiators of the 194 countries participating in the process were prepared to show the required political will to move the process forward. "It is without any doubt in my mind that we have worked together to save tomorrow, today,” she said.
The mass of ministers and other politicians taking part in the COP17 talks will also, no doubt, hail the Durban climate change talks as a success. They will find something they can take home to show their respective constituencies that their participation was worthwhile.
Even the UN Secretary General, Ban ki-Moon, issued a statement praising the outcomes of COP17. The statement, attributed to Ban’s spokesman, said, “Taken together, these agreements represent an important advance in our work on climate change”.
Not surprisingly, environmental activists have shown deep disappointment with the outcomes of the Durban talks. Well known enviro-group, Greenpeace, had this to say on its website: “UN climate talks in Durban have ended the same way they began, in failure. Governments at the UN climate talks have chosen to listen to the polluters over the people and failed to reinforce previous climate-saving measures and have steered clear of new global rules for tackling climate change.”
As is often the case, the most accurate assessment of a situation can be found somewhere in the middle ground. The outcomes of the official COP17 meeting are weak and somewhat contrived, to show the world that progress has been achieved. Whenever there is a significant difference of position, the phraseology of the so-called Durban Package of outcomes has been made deliberately fuzzy.
On the other hand, the meeting will prove to be valuable in the way it heightened international awareness of the gravity of global warming and it also alerted the politicians about just how much people, and particularly potential voters, care about the fate of this planet.
