Cancun 2010

Andrew Heintzman, president and CEO of Green Living sister company, Investeco, and Chair of the Premier's Climate Change Advisory Panel for the Province of Ontario, is currently attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico.

The aim of the summit, which formally wraps up today, was for the leaders of the world's 20 major economies to reach a binding agreement on curbing greenhouse gasses after 2012, when the current emission reduction targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol expire.

The G20 leaders failed to reach an agreement at the last UN climate summit in December 2009, primarily because China was reluctant to agree to binding commitments.

To help us get a handle on this week's events, we asked Andrew to send us some notes from the conference. 

Here's what he told us on December 9:

• Although the president of COP16 (the Mexican Foreign Minister) has repeatedly expressed her desire to wrap things up on Friday afternoon, it is universally agreed that the negotiations will go on all night on Friday and into Saturday. There is a sense that on some matters discussions are going well, but on others the parties are far apart.
• It is thought that the Mexicans want to come out of Cancun with, at minimum, a deal on what's referred to as REDD+, and that they will do some last-minute arm twisting to make that happen. Remember that this is a unanimous process, so any of the 194 countries can scupper any part of the deal.
• Also, the Americans have suggested they don't want deals on only parts of the broad agreement; they want to see progress across the board. It remains to be seen whether there will be enough progress on other issues to satisfy them, or whether the hosts can convince them to support REDD on its own.
• The complexity of the issues and process is staggering, but most seem to feel the Mexicans have run a good process that is transparent and respectful, and that has built some goodwill amongst the countries to try to make sure they don't come out empty-handed. This is especially important as many people feel that a lack of real, tangible progress could imperil the entire UNFCCC process.

A lot will be decided now in the last days.

Watch for Andrew's final report in the coming weeks.

Andrew Heintzman's latest book is The New Entrepreneurs: Building a Green Economy for the Future (Anansi, 2010). It's available from the publisher or at Amazon.com.