Durban Climate Conference - Commons Library Standard Note

Published 05 January 2012 | Standard notes SN06140

Amended 13 February 2012

Authors: Elena Ares

Topic: Climate change, Environmental protection

The 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the UN Framework on Climate Change took place in Durban between 28th November and 11th December 2011.

Background on previous annual meetings can be found in the Library Paper on the Copenhagen conference in 2009 and in the Standard Note on the Cancun conference in 2010.

Many of the decisions that were not taken in Cancun - such as what would succeed the Kyoto Protocol - were no nearer to being resolved when the conference began, with little progress during preparatory meetings. Despite this consensus was reached on drawing up an agreement by 2015, that would include all developed and developing countries making some kind of commitment to reduce emissions, which would come into force from 2020. The EU also agreed to a second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol.

There was also progress in other areas, such as climate finance for developing countries, forestry, and inclusion of carbon capture and storage in the Clean Development Mechanism

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