COP17: is this coalition of governments, international organizations, and civil society declaring war on climate change or is this like the contradictory policy that for 20 years has been unable to give a global response to climate change?

The Durban Platform for Enhances Action gives us a thread of hope, but failure is just around the corner. The 194 nations participating in the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa forged a roadmap that will lead to the drafting of a future global agreement, to be ratified by 2020. For the first time all countries are put in the same bag, including the most polluting ones, eliminating the division between developing and developed countries.

These two weeks of intense negotiations have been Herculean; with India and China, “the friendly giants,” reluctant until the end and Europe disposed since the beginning. The Asian duo has been emphasising the impossibility of accepting a binding agreement to be implemented before 2020, especially if the U.S. continues with its ambiguous environmental policy.

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