Durban climate change conference: Big three of US, China and India agree to cut carbon emissions
A new deal to “save the planet” will force the world’s three biggest emitters the US, China and India to cut carbon emissions for the first time, although scientists fear it will come too late to stop global warming.
More than 190 countries managed to finally agree a new climate change deal amid chaotic scenes in the early hours of Sunday morning in Durban, South Africa.
As the United Nations conference overran into its second day it looked like the talks were on the brink of collapse as the EU and India argued over just two words in the text.
In the end the wording was decided in an extraordinary 10 minute ‘huddle’ between the exhausted ministers to decide the fate of future generations.
The ‘Durban Platform’ will commit all countries to a global deal on cutting carbon emissions by 2015 although it will not come into force until 2020.
The UN marked it as an “historic breakthrough to save the planet”, that makes up for the collapse of the last high profile attempt for a global deal in Copenhagen in 2009.
But the most vulnerable countries to climate change said waiting until 2020 to enforce the deal will not be enough to save small island states from sea level rise or stop droughts and floods.
UN scientists have stated that emissions need to peak and start coming down before 2020 to stand a chance of keeping temperature rise within the ‘safe zone’ of 2C.