Carbon Management Bulletin

Cancun Agreements

Last week, the international climate negotiations concluded in Cancun, Mexico. The 16th Conference of the Conference of the Parties (COP-16) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) resulted in a series of non-binding agreements that are being viewed as incremental progress on a number of fronts. Given that federal U.S. climate change legislation is unlikely to move forward any time soon, the developments in Cancun largely affect international and voluntary carbon market activities and the new California cap-and-trade program (see story below).

Agreements Beat Expectations, Punts on Difficult Issues

Despite low expectations for consensus, and a repeat of the disarray taking place a year prior in Copenhagen, COP-16 resulted in a suite of agreements (collectively the "Cancun Agreements").¹ The package concludes a number of pledges made in the Copenhagen Accord, and set a path forward for a number of important issues,