Mail & Guardian - 14 October 2011
Durban, December 2011, will be the place where the Kyoto Protocol is either buried or resurrected. The protocol is the only legally binding international instrument the world has today for fighting climate change.
When nations gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009 for the 15th annual Conference of the Parties (COP15), the world was looking for a climate deal that was "fab" -- fair, ambitious and binding.
What they got -- the Copenhagen Accord -- was something that was "fair" in as much as it promised money to poorer nations to help them cope with climate change (so-called "adaptation") and also included countries such as South Africa and China, which are significant emitters of greenhouse gas but did not previously have any obligations under the protocol.