CANCUN

"Cancun can" was the snappy phrase used at the beginning of last week by Lykke Friis, Denmark's Energy and Climate Minister, and one third of the triumvirate of nations steering the climate change talks in Cancun, Mexico. Well, Cancun did; but was it anything of value?

After last year's fiasco in Copenhagen, expectations for Cancun were very low. However, not so low that the talks didn't matter. They were taking place under the auspices of the U.N., as befitting the presence of delegates from 190 countries. Failure this time would probably have scuppered the U.N. route for good. But if the problems of the world's climate can't be solved under the umbrella of the only real world organisation, how can they be solved?

Against that background, an agreed document duly emerged. But it was definitely of the lowest common denominator kind. Delegates agreed that current pledges to reduce CO2 emissions need to rise; but new cuts were not agreed, and - crucially - there was no agreement on how pledges, either current or future, could be made legally binding. That must await, at the earliest, next year's meeting of the circus in South Africa. Developing countries will have to content themselves with getting agreement on the Green Climate Fund, whereby money will be channelled from rich countries to poor.

In the meantime, the climate itself is continuing its merry dance. Amid the snow and ice of Northern Europe, Cyprus had no rain at all in November and a very pleasant 29 degrees; while a forest fire in Northern Israel killed more than 40 people last week. Yesterday, I woke to a green landscape after the temperature rose during the night and melted all the snow. Yet down in the Eastern Mediterranean there are now fierce storms and snow. Whatever they say about Cancun, the climate definitely can.

Walter Blotscher