Compared to the media frenzy at Copenhagen in 2009, coverage of the Cancun climate negotiations last year was relatively low-key.
In fact the UK’s Guardian newspaper estimated that in the months around the conference the big US media (the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, ABC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC and NBC ) ran fewer than 200 stories tackling climate change, fewer than the Guardian alone.
But is that a bad thing?
While Copenhagen collapsed under the weight of impossibly high standards, Cancun kicked off with very low expectations.
The negotiations seemed to fare better without the full glare of the world’s media, visits by high-ranking world leaders and do-or-die political rhetoric – all the things that were supposed to help Copenhagen succeed.
This time, with comparatively little fanfare, negotiators made some small but helpful steps.
To start with, the UN’s REDD programme, which helps rich and poor countries team up to save tropical forests, officially became part of negotiations. Countries such as Brazil, Congo and Indonesia will be able to receive aid for not burning or logging forests – a major contributor to carbon emissions.
Countries also worked on furthering a promise made at Copenhagen to create a climate fund to help poor countries cope with climate effects - although the details remain very sketchy.
Perhaps most significantly, tentative progress was made towards allowing countries to keep tabs on each others’ emissions cuts – the subject of a sub-negotiations facilitated by New Zealand’s Climate Change Negotiations Minister Tim Groser.
For the first time, China has agreed to submit its emissions savings to international scrutiny – a must-have for the United States, and a source of tension between the two big polluters (although again there is no detail on how this will happen).
Having been conditioned to expect a shambles, politicians and environmental groups proclaimed Cancun a modest success. It gave new life to the UN process, which was in danger of losing all credibility.
The hard issues have not gone away - country pledges are well below what scientists say is needed, and negotiators will find it hard to keeping deferring legally binding pledges much longer. Kyoto expires at the end of 2012, and as yet there is nothing to replace it. The longer an agreement takes, the more steeply emissions will need to fall.
In the meantime, there is plenty of space for companies to take action.
With political negotiations moving at snails’-pace, some of the world’s biggest companies (Kraft, Unilever) have staked out sustainability strategies in preparation for a greener world economy.
The fourth State of Green Business Report – an annual pulse-checking exercise by Greenbiz.com – concluded that a “sea change” was happening in business sustainability, albeit a very slow one.
The report found that out of 20 “green business” measures, green buildings, water efficiency and investment in green product development had progressed well in the United States last year. Companies did less well when it came to collecting e-waste, encouraging telecommuting and reducing the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions per dollar earned.
The report is worth a look if you are interested in what companies in the world’s biggest economy are doing – and what your company could do better.
You can download a free copy at www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/02/01/state-green-business-2011
