Stand and deliver: What Cancun did - and didn't - achieve

Key Points:

The big winner from COP 16 is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process itself

Unlike the bitter aftermath of COP 15 in Copenhagen in 2009, the sentiment following COP 16 in Cancun in 2010 appears to be, in the main, cautiously optimistic with regards to the modest gains achieved in some of the key aspects of the UNFCCC negotiations.

But without a doubt, the big winner from COP 16 is the UNFCCC process itself. After a near-death experience at Copenhagen, the UNFCCC process was brought back from the brink by some deft diplomacy on the part of the host nation. The Mexican Government's collaborative, transparent and confidence-building approach to the negotiations in the lead-up to and during COP 16 is widely credited with restoring trust, fundamental to the success of any multilateral treaty process, which was critically damaged during, and in the months following, COP 15.