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. 
 
 Photo 
 
 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. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 “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.” 
 
 Photo 
 
 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." ||||| As UN climate negotiations resume in Bonn, we look at why the crunch Paris climate conference from 30 November to 11 December is so important 
 
 What is happening in Paris this December? 
 
 The governments of more than 190 nations will gather in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoiding the threat of dangerous climate change. 
 
 Why now? 
 
 Current commitments on greenhouse gas emissions run out in 2020, so at Paris governments are expected to produce an agreement on what happens for the decade after that at least, and potentially beyond. 
 
 Emissions trajectory Photograph: Guardian 
 
 Why is this important? 
 
 Scientists have warned that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, we will pass the threshold beyond which global warming becomes catastrophic and irreversible. That threshold is estimated as a temperature rise of 2C above pre-industrial levels, and on current emissions trajectories we are heading for a rise of about 5C. That may not sound like much, but the temperature difference between today’s world and the last ice age was about 5C, so seemingly small changes in temperature can mean big differences for the Earth. 
 
 Why has nobody thought of getting a global agreement on this before now? 
 
 They have: global negotiations on climate change have been carrying on for more than 20 years. The history of climate change goes back much further: in the 19th century, physicists theorised about the role of greenhouse gases, chiefly carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere, and several suggested that the warming effect would increase alongside the levels of these gases in the atmosphere. But this was all theoretical. 
 
 Only in the past few decades have scientists begun the measurements necessary to establish a relationship between current carbon levels and temperatures, and the science conducted since then has consistently pointed in one direction: that rising greenhouse gas emissions, arising from our use of fossil fuels and our industries, lead to higher temperatures. 
 
 The hottest year ever around the world – in pictures Read more 
 
 Hasn’t global warming stopped? 
 
 No. Global temperatures have been on a clear upward path. There was a spike in 1998, after which temperatures were lower – but still warmer than previous decades – that led some climate sceptics to claim that the world was cooling. 
 
 During the period since 1998, global temperatures have risen at a slower pace than they did in the previous 30 years. That, too, has been seized upon by sceptics as evidence that global warming has “paused”. 
 
 But it is important to note that temperatures have not fallen, or stalled – they have continued to rise. Given the variations that characterise our weather systems, a period in which the rate of warming slowed is not unexpected. 
 
 For the past two years, the rate of warming seems to have accelerated again, but little can be construed from that. 
 
 What progress have we seen on a global agreement? 
 
 In 1992, governments met in Rio de Janeiro and forged the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. That agreement, still in force, bound governments to take action to avoid dangerous climate change, but did not specify what actions. Over the following five years, governments wrangled over what each should do, and what should be the role of developed countries versus poorer nations. 
 
 Those years of argument produced, in 1997, the Kyoto protocol. That pact required worldwide cuts in emissions of about 5%, compared with 1990 levels, by 2012, and each developed country was allotted a target on emissions reductions. But developing countries, including China, South Korea, Mexico and other rapidly emerging economies, were given no targets and allowed to increase their emissions at will. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest People sign the Earth pledge made at the the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992. Photograph: UN Photo 
 
 Al Gore, then US vice-president, signed up to the protocol, but it was quickly apparent that it would never be ratified by the US Congress. Legally, the protocol could not come into force until countries representing 55% of global emissions had ratified it. With the US – then the world’s biggest emitter – on the outside, that was not going to happen. 
 
 
 
 So for most of the following decade, the Kyoto protocol remained in abeyance and global climate change negotiations ground to a near-halt. But in late 2004, Russia decided to pass the treaty – unexpectedly, and as part of a move to have its application for World Trade Organisation membership accepted by the European Union. That made up the weight needed, and the protocol finally came into force. 
 
 So we had a global agreement? 
 
 Not quite. The US, under George W Bush, remained firmly outside Kyoto, so although the UN negotiations carried on year after year, the US negotiators were often in different rooms from the rest of the world. It was clear a new approach was needed that could bring the US in, and encourage the major developing economies – especially China, now the world’s biggest emitter – to take on limits to their emissions. 
 
 What followed was, agreed at Bali in 2007 after much drama, an action plan that set the world on the course to a new agreement that would take over from Kyoto. 
 
 This is taking a long time. What happened next? 
 
 It did take a long time. But getting agreement from 196 countries was never going to be easy. The next act of this long-running drama fully demonstrated that: the Copenhagen conference of 2009. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest US president Barack Obama along with European leaders including German chancellor Angela Merkel, centre, attend negotiations on the final night of the Copenhagen UN Climate Change summit in Denmark on 18 December 2009. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images 
 
 What happened at Copenhagen? 
 
 Everything but the treaty. All of the world’s developed countries and the biggest developing countries agreed – for the first time – to limits on their greenhouse gas emissions. This was a landmark, as it meant the world’s biggest emitters were united towards a single goal. 
 
 The emissions reductions agreed on were still not enough to meet scientific advice, but they were a big advance on reducing emissions compared with “business as usual”. 
 
 But what didn’t happen turned out to be the point that NGOs and many in the press seized on. What didn’t happen was a fully articulated and legally binding treaty. 
 
 Is that important? 
 
 It depends on your viewpoint. The Kyoto protocol was a beautifully written, watertight, fully legally binding international treaty, a sub-treaty of the similarly binding UNFCCC. But it never met its objectives, because it wasn’t ratified by the US, and not by Russia until it was too late. And none of the countries that failed to meet their commitments under Kyoto have been sanctioned. 
 
 The Copenhagen agreement, on the other hand, was not fully adopted by the UN in 2009 because of last-minute chaos at the conference, though it was ratified the following year in the form of the Cancun agreements. For this reason, the Copenhagen agreement was derided as a failure by green groups. 
 
 But the targets agreed at Copenhagen, in the form of a document signed by world leaders, still stand. 
 
 Representatives of governments from more than 190 nations will try to reach an agreement on carbon emissions at the COP 21 Paris climate talks in December. Photograph: COP21 
 
 What is likely to be agreed in Paris? 
 
 We know already what the biggest emitters have committed to. The EU will cut its emissions by 40%, compared with 1990 levels, by 2030. The US will cut its emissions by 26% to 28%, compared with 2005 levels, by 2025. China will agree that its emissions will peak by 2030. 
 
 Nations responsible for more than 90% of global emissions have now come up with their targets – known in the UN jargon as Indended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs . These include all of the major developed and developing countries, though their contributions vary: in the case of developed countries, actual cuts in emissions, but for developing countries a range of targets including limits on emissions compared to “business as usual”, and pledges to increase low-carbon energy or preserve forests. 
 
 Analysis of the INDCS, endorsed by the UN, has suggested that these pledges are enough to hold the world to about 2.7C or 3C of warming. That is not quite enough to meet the scientific advice. However, that is not the end of the story. One of the key components of any Paris agreement would be to institute a system of review of the emissions targets every five years, with a view to ratcheting them upwards. 
 
 Another, and complementary, approach is to make more effort to bring down emissions outside the UN process, for instance by engaging “non-state actors” such as cities, local governments and businesses to do more. 
 
 If the commitments from the major countries are in the bag, does that mean the Paris agreement is settled? 
 
 Not at all – the other key question, apart from emissions reductions, is finance. Poorer countries want the rich world to provide them with financial help that will enable them to invest in clean technology to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, and to adapt their infrastructure to the likely damage from climate change. 
 
 This is a hugely contentious issue. At Copenhagen, where the finance part of the deal was only sorted out at the very last minute, rich countries agreed to supply $30bn ($20bn) of “fast-start” financial assistance to the poor nations, and they said that by 2020, financial flows of at least $100bn a year would be provided. 
 
 As a cornerstone of any Paris agreement, poor countries want assurances that this pledge will be met. That has now been given, in several forms: the OECD issued a report in October showing that two thirds of the finance required is already being supplied; and a report by the World Resources Institute showed that the remainder can be made up by increased finance from the World Bank and other development banks, and from the private sector. The World Bank and several governments have already committed to upping their financial assistance, meaning that a clear path towards the 2020 target can now be discerned. 
 
 There is more, however. Poor nations also want a similar provision in place beyond 2020, but there is strong disagreement over how this should be done. Some want all the money to come from rich country governments, but those governments are adamant that they will not provide such funding solely from the public purse. They want international development banks, such as the World Bank, to play a role, and they want most of the funding to come from the private sector. 
 
 An agreement on this is still possible, but it will be one of the main obstacles to a Paris deal. 
 
 Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure Read more 
 
 Will world leaders go to Paris to agree on this? 
 
 Yes. The heads of state or government of more than 130 countries have already said they will come. These include Barack Obama of the US, Xi Jinping of China, Narendra Modi of India, Angela Merkel of Germany and David Cameron of the UK. None have as yet pulled out as a result of the terrorist attacks on Paris, and security has been stepped up as an assurance. Unlike the Copenhagen talks, however, at which world leaders turned up at the last minute of the two weeks of talks to find their negotiating teams in chaos and without a clear agreement for them to sign, this time the leaders will arrive at the beginning of the conference, give their negotiating teams clear instructions, and expect a fully formed agreement at the end of it. 
 
 On behalf of the French government, the conference will be led by foreign minister Laurent Fabius, and environment minister Segolene Royal, but the French president Francois Hollande will also play a key role. They are all confident that a deal can be made. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest French president Francois Hollande. Photograph: Philippe Wojazer /Pool/EPA 
 
 What else can we expect before Paris? 
 
 The key question now is over security. With the French capital under recent attack, and reports of fresh assaults averted by the armed forces, the atmosphere in Paris will be unlike any city that has hosted major international talks before. Security will be paramount - the French police and army will be on the streets, and the venue will be patrolled by uniformed UN guards - but the atrocities of 13 November will hang heavily on all delegates. This may mean that when world leaders attend private meetings, terrorism is discussed before climate change. But it may also mean that delegates are under more pressure than ever to come up with a deal, given the tragic circumstances surrounding them. 
 
 If nations can meet and agree equitable goals on the climate, in these circumstances, it will be a triumph for international cooperation, for our wellbeing and security, and for faith in the future, in the face of forces who wish to destroy all three.
– 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.