After 13 days' negotiation, the UN Climate Change Conference held in Cancun, Mexico, reached modest but promising pledges to cut greenhouse gas emission and to provide fund for developing countries to fight against climate change. The agreements rescued the 20-year climate negotiations from what appeared to be imminent collapse after the Copenhagen talks ended in recrimination.

Yu Hongyuan, Deputy Director of the Department of International Organizations and Laws at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, recently shared his views on what Cancun conference has achieved with Jiefang Daily. Edited excerpts follow:

The UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun reached a consensus on reducing greenhouse gas emission and setting up finance and technology aid mechanism.

There are two core issues in the Cancun conference. One is how to standardize the negotiating process on climate change. The other is what responsibility every country should shoulder in curbing the issue, including developed countries' emission reduction commitments, financial support and technology transfer to developing countries. 

The achievement of the Cancun conference is that it has agreed on creating a global fund for mitigation and adaptation through maintaining the principles of two-track negotiation mechanism and common but differentiated responsibilities. By setting up the Green Climate Fund, developed countries will fulfill their commitments of providing $30 billion to help developing countries deal with climate change in the short term. In the long run, they committed to a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion per year by 2020 to back the most vulnerable developing countries to adapt to unavoidable impacts of climate change, develop a low carbon economy, protect the rainforest and adopt the technology of renewable energy.

Whether the developed countries can fulfill their commitments of providing climate financing is vital to fighting against climate change. To what extent the developing countries perform their commitments under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) depends on to what extent the developed countries will fulfill their commitments of providing financial aid and technology transfer.

As developing countries undergo industrialization and urbanization, they have to consume energy to develop the economy. Transferring technology to developing countries to fight against climate change should be the political will of developed countries, not conditions of bargaining or tools of gaining profits. In this sense, the developed countries should strive to break down barriers in technology transfer and develop green economies, while carrying out what they have committed in the Copenhagen Accord so that the technology transfer and financial aid will continue smoothly. Research conducted by the UN during the Cancun conference shows that 60 percent of current carbon emission should be cut to prevent temperature from rising more than two degrees centigrade, at which climate disaster will occur. To achieve this, developed countries should take a lead in cutting greenhouse gas emissions and realize their commitments to provide climate fund to developing countries.

However, due to different levels of development and diverse interests of each country, the intricate contradiction between curbing climate change and developing economies, and some countries' deliberate objection to UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, the climate change negotiation will be an arduous long process. In this process, the developed and developing countries should jointly work together under the principles of transparency, massive participation and reaching consensus through consultation so that a low carbon society can be established.