CANCÚN, Mexico — The United Nations climate change conference began with modest aims and ended early Saturday with modest achievements. But while the measures adopted here may have scant near-term impact on the warming of the planet, the international process for dealing with the issue got a significant vote of confidence. 
 
 The agreement fell well short of the broad changes scientists say are needed to avoid dangerous climate change in coming decades. But it lays the groundwork for stronger measures in the future, if nations are able to overcome the emotional arguments that have crippled climate change negotiations in recent years. 
 
 The package known as the Cancún Agreements gives the more than 190 countries participating in the conference another year to decide whether to extend the frayed Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement that requires most wealthy nations to trim their emissions while providing assistance to developing countries to pursue a cleaner energy future. 
 
 The agreement is not a legally binding treaty, but the success of these talks allows the process to seek a more robust accord at next year’s climate conference in Durban, South Africa. 
 
 “This is not the end, but it is a new beginning,” said Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who serves as executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “It is not what is ultimately required, but it is the essential foundation on which to build greater, collective ambition.” 
 
 The agreement sets up a new fund to help poor countries adapt to climate changes, creates new mechanisms for transfer of clean energy technology, provides compensation for the preservation of tropical forests and strengthens the emissions reductions pledges that came out of the last United Nations climate change meeting in Copenhagen last year. 
 
 The conference approved the package over the objections of Bolivia, which condemned the pact as too weak. Bolivia’s chief climate negotiator, Pablo Solón, said that the emissions reductions laid out in the plan would allow global temperatures to rise as much as 4 degrees Celsius over the next half century, twice the stated goal of the agreement and a level that would doom millions in the poorest and most vulnerable nations. 
 
 But his protests did not block acceptance of the package. Delegates from island states and the least-developed countries warmly welcomed the pact because it would start the flow of billions of dollars to assist them to adopt cleaner energy systems and adapt to inevitable changes in the climate, like sea rise and drought. 
 
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 But it left unresolved where the $100 billion in annual climate-related aid that the wealthy nations have promised to provide would come from. 
 
 Todd Stern, the American climate envoy, said the package achieved much of what he had hoped, including a more solid commitment by all nations to take steps to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and a more formalized international program of reporting and verification of reductions. It adds needed specifics to the fuzzy promises of last year’s Copenhagen Accord, he said. 
 
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 “This is a significant step forward that builds on the progress made in Copenhagen,” he said in a news conference after the package was adopted. “It successfully anchors mitigation pledges of the Copenhagen Accord and builds on the transparency element of the accord with substantial detail and content.” 
 
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 Mr. Stern had been particularly insistent that the agreement include a consistent formula for countries to disclose their emissions, report on the measures they are taking to reduce them and provide detailed statements of economic assumptions and methodology. Although a number of large developing nations like China, Brazil and South Africa balked at the intrusiveness of the system, Mr. Stern helped devise a compromise they could live with. 
 
 Yvo de Boer, who stepped down this year after four years as executive secretary of the United Nations climate office, said that the success of this year’s conference was in large measure attributable to the modesty of its goals. 
 
 “This process has never been characterized by leaps and bounds,” he said in an interview. “It has been characterized by small steps. And I’d rather see this small step here in Cancún than the international community tripping over itself in an effort to make a large leap.” 
 
 In all, the success of the Cancún talks was a shot in the arm for a process that some had likened to a zombie, stumbling aimlessly but refusing to die. 
 
 “None of this, of course, is world changing,” said Michael A. Levi, who follows climate issues at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “The Cancún agreement should be applauded not because it solves everything, but because it chooses not to: it focuses on those areas where the U.N. process has the most potential to be useful, and avoids other areas where the U.N. process is a dead end. The outcome does not change the fact that most of the important work of cutting emissions will be driven outside the U.N. process.” ||||| A comprehensive global deal is now back on track after the agreement, which was reached despite protests by Bolivia during a dramatic finale to the United Nations meeting in Mexico . 
 
 The crunch talks went late into the night as more than 190 countries attempted to agree on the best way to cut carbon emissions. 
 
 The last attempt to reach a global deal in Copenhagen at the end of last year ended in chaos and there were fears that the UN process could collapse completely if talks failed again. 
 
 However, after two weeks of negotiating, rich and poor countries agreed a compromise that will see all countries committed to cutting emissions for the first time. 
 
 The "Cancun package" also sets up a "green fund" to help poor countries cope with climate change and a new scheme to halt deforestation. 
 
 Bolivia claimed the agreement was "tantamount to genocide" because cuts are not tough enough to stop dangerous global warming. 
 
 But after repeated attempts to achieve consensus, the UN decision was taken without the agreement of the South American country. 
 
 To cheers from the ministers, Patricia Espinosa, Mexican foreign secretary and president of the talks, overruled the Bolivian negotiator who repeatedly took the floor and insisted the deal needed complete consensus. 
 
 "I of course note your position, but if there are no other objections, the document is adopted," she said to thunderous applause. 
 
 Felipe Calderón, the president of Mexico, said it was a historic agreement. 
 
 He said the world has been "crushed by inertia and helplessness" in the face of climate change. 
 
 But he said that the deal in Cancun would restore hope in the UN process and the fight against climate change. 
 
 "Confidence is back, hope has returned to the fight against climate change and in many other matters that require hope and trust in the face of our global problems," he said. 
 
 The new deal falls short of a global treaty. However it has progressed from Copenhagen by getting all countries, except Bolivia, to sign up to an official UN document. 
 
 The Cancun deal commits all countries to keeping temperature rise below 2C (3.6F) by reducing emissions. Rich countries have agreed to consider an extension of the Kyoto Protocol while poor countries will sign up to emission cuts for the first time. There are also a series of key decisions on setting up a green fund to help poor countries cope with climate change and halting deforestation. 
 
 Chris Huhne, the Climate Change and Energy Secretary, said the proposals did not give everybody everything they wanted but it was progress. 
 
 "We've made much more progress than anybody expected only weeks," he said. 
 
 "We have real commitments to reductions of greenhouse gases both by developed and developing countries." ||||| Governments today reached an historic deal on climate change that commits all major economies to greenhouse gas cuts. The deal, brokered at international talks in Cancún, has been hailed as restoring faith in the multilateral UN process but will not reduce temperatures as much as scientists say is needed, and it pushes many of the most important decisions to future negotiations. 
 
 The deal, which took four years of negotiations to reach, should lead to less deforestation, the transfer of technology to developing countries and the establishment of a yearly fund, potentially worth up to $100bn (£64bn), to help countries adapt to climate change. 
 
 "This is way better than what we were expecting only a few weeks ago. It's a good deal which gives a new sense of momentum to [climate change] discussions. There was nothing inevitable about this package," said Chris Huhne, energy and climate change secretary who has led the UK's negotiating team. 
 
 "This is a significant turning point. It clearly says that there should be reductions from developing countries. I would like to have seen a 2020 date for global emissions to peak but this takes us forward to a legally-binding overall outcome," he added. 
 
 In a series of late night exchanges, the only opposition came from Bolivia who complained that the deal was being pushed through without consensus. It eventually gave in after intense pressure from the chair of the talks and other countries. 
 
 "This has violated the multilateral rules because they didn't respect the consensus – they are breaking the rules," said Pablo Solon, Bolivia's ambassador to the UN, "This agreement won't stop temperature from rising by 4C and we know that 4C is unsustainable," he added. 
 
 Japan, the one rich country that tried to delay progress in the talks by refusing to sign up to a second commitment period to the Kyoto protocol, gave in after complex legal manoeuvres and pressure from other G20 countries. 
 
 Connie Hedegaard, the EU commissioner for climate action, had earlier in the week spoken of a "very frank exchange of views" with the Japanese delegation. Welcoming the deal, she said, "We have helped to deliver the successful outcome the world expected and needed. But the two weeks in Cancún have shown once again how slow and difficult the process is. Everyone needs to be aware that we still have a long and challenging journey ahead of us to reach the goal of a legally binding global climate framework." 
 
 The deal was greeted with strong reservations by environment groups. "With lives on the line, we must now build on this progress. Long term funding must be secured to help vulnerable countries protect themselves," said Oxfam director Jeremy Hobbs. 
 
 "Cancun may have saved the process but it did not yet save the climate," said Greenpeace International Climate Policy Director Wendel Trio. "Some called the [UN] process dead but governments have shown that they can cooperate and can move forward to achieve a global deal." 
 
 Friends of the Earth International said the agreement was "a slap in the face of those who already suffer from climate change", and could still lead to a temperature rises of 5C. "In the end, all of us will be affected by the lack of ambition and political will of a small group of countries. The US, with Russia and Japan, are to blame for the lack of desperately needed greater ambition," said Nnimmo Bassey, Friends of the Earth international director. 
 
 Other measures agreed in outline included the established of a climate fund to handle and deliver the billions needed for the developing world to adapt to climate change and a system to inspect the actions taken to avoid climate change by rich and larger developing countries. 
 
 However, no date was included in the agreement by when countries must "peak" their emissions. This is considered essential to avoid more serious problems later. 
 
 The Mexican presidency was roundly praised for its handling of the negotiations. Becky Chacko, director of Climate Change policy for Conservation International said: "The Mexicans have tried very hard to maintain an atmosphere of transparency and inconclusiveness. In Copenhagen, there was a hope that things could get pressed through so you had a situation where there was text being written behind closed doors and not everyone was included in all of the processes… Here, they made sure that everyone was included and that led to a level of buy-in and consensus that we didn't have last year." ||||| Sponsored Links 
 
 CANCUN, Mexico (Dec. 11) -- The United Nations annual climate change summit ended on a dramatic note of compromise, with more than 190 nations adopting a set of agreements that lay the groundwork for future negotiations."The text is the best we can do right now and there is room to improve things next year," said Mohamed Aslam, the environment minister of Maldives.The Cancun Agreements give both developing and developed countries a bit of what they wanted, covering issues ranging from greenhouse gas emission cuts to rules for reducing deforestation.The package lays out a plan to strengthen "monitoring, reporting and verification" of emissions-reduction actions by both developed and developing countries, and to promote transparency about money provided to poor countries for climate change.Lead U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern noted at a press conference after the adoption that ideas which were "just skeletal" at last year's conference now have been fleshed out and approved."Obviously this package is not going to solve climate change by itself, but it is a good step forward," Stern said.Under the agreements, developed countries recognize the need to reduce carbon emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020, as well as to beef up their emission reduction targets. However, industrialized countries did not specify their future carbon emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol, which is the only treaty that imposes binding emission cuts on rich nations.Many countries were happy simply to avoid the controversy of the climate conference in Copenhagen last year, where a great deal of mistrust existed between developed and developing countries. That Copenhagen Accord, which was the product of consultations among the U.S., Brazil, India, South Africa and China, was slammed by Latin American countries such as Bolivia and Venezuela who were angry at being left out.This time around, Bolivia was the only country that mounted an aggressive attack on the agreements, saying they failed to require adequate commitments on the reduction of greenhouse gases by developed countries."This is not a step forward but a step backward," said Bolivia's top climate negotiator, Pablo Solon. He argued that the agreements should be rejected since one country was objecting and in U.N. negotiations, decisions are adopted by consensus.But Patricia Espinosa, the chairman of the conference, shot back that Bolivia could not veto the will of the rest of the countries.The debate continued into the early hours of the morning Saturday with other delegates listening in silence or applauding the fiery rhetoric. Finally, Espinosa gaveled Bolivia down and the package was adopted.The Cancun Agreements will be further worked out as climate change negotiations begin in 2011, and there will be a push to produce a legally binding treaty at the annual conference in Durban, South Africa, next year.Wendel Trio from Greenpeace pointed out that the Cancun Agreements text on carbon mitigation obligations is "vague," particularly about targets for the United States."It refers to increased pledge but does not say how much the pledge needs to be increased," he said. "The U.S. comes out cheaply."Others are wary of the possibility that the Cancun Agreements could kill the Kyoto Protocol by paving the way for a new single treaty where developed countries will have lower emission reduction targets."That's a good chunk of industrialized country emissions that are under Kyoto Protocol now threatening to go out of the back door and trying to get into a non-binding regime," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
– The climate talks in Cancun are over, and the assessments seem to fall into the modest-but-better-than-expected range, mainly because they set the stage for future talks. Monsters and Critics has highlights here, including a goal by the nearly 200 participating nations to limit the rise in world temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius and the creation of a "Green Climate Fund" to help developing nations adapt. Guardian: The deal restores "faith in the multilateral UN process but will not reduce temperatures as much as scientists say is needed, and it pushes many of the most important decisions to future negotiations." AOL News: It gives "both developing and developed countries a bit of what they wanted, covering issues ranging from greenhouse gas emission cuts to rules for reducing deforestation." New York Times: "The result was a major step forward for a process that has stumbled badly in recent years." It gives the nations "another year to decide whether to extend the frayed Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement that requires most wealthy nations to trim their emissions while providing assistance to developing countries to pursue a cleaner energy future." Telegraph: "A comprehensive global deal is now back on track. ... After two weeks of negotiating, rich and poor countries agreed a compromise that will see all countries committed to cutting emissions for the first time." Click here to read about Bolivia's objection that the pact is not nearly strong enough.