ARTICLE · 18 JANUARY 2012

COP 17 and beyond - the climate change challenges posed by the Durban Platform

Clayton Utz

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The Durban Platform sets a challenge for the international community and maps out future global climate change action.

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Brendan Bateman

Alison Packham

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Key Points:

The Durban Platform has set the challenge for the international community and mapped out the future of global climate change action, at least as far as 2020.

COP17/CMP7 in Durban, the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the signatories to the Kyoto Protocol, resulted in over 36 decisions, including the key outcome, the Durban Platform.

That the US, China, India and Brazil, the world's largest emitters, agreed to the Durban Platform, which sets a roadmap for the negotiation, agreement and commencement of the successor to the Kyoto Protocol, is labelled a "significant" or "landmark decision" by some and "a face-saver" and "major disappointment" by others.

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