13 December 2010
Video: Sam Bickersteth, Senior Climate Change and Agriculture Advisor at DFID, interviewed at Cancun by the NGO Farming First
The British Prime Minister has welcomed the climate change agreement that has been reached at the Cancun Summit. The UNFCCC COP16 conference took place in Cancun, Mexico over 29 November to 10 December 2010 and marked a turning point in the negotiations to agree an international deal to tackle dangerous climate change.
In a statement released over the weekend, David Cameron said:
"The Cancun agreement is a very significant step forward in renewing the determination of the international community to tackle climate change through multilateral action. Now the world must deliver on its promises.”
Key outcomes from the agreements at the Summit are:
- Objective: agreement to peak emissions and an overall 2 degree target to limit temperature rise.
- Long-term finance: established the Green Climate Fund and will start to get it ready to help developing countries go low carbon and adapt to climate impacts.
- Deforestation: agreed to slow, halt and reverse destruction of trees and agree the rules for delivering it and for monitoring progress.
- Technology/Adaptation: set up the mechanisms to help developing countries access low carbon technology, and adapt to climate change
- Emissions: bringing details of what developed and developing countries are doing to tackle climate change, promised in Copenhagen, into the UN system so they can be assessed.
- MRV: agreed a system so we know how countries are living up to their promises to take action on emissions.
Achieving progress on a climate deal is crucial to tackling global poverty. The world’s poorest people are hit first and hit hardest by climate change. People in developing countries are already suffering the effects of flooding, rising sea levels, drought, crop failure and the destruction caused by natural disasters.
As part of the UK team in Cancun, DFID was pushing for progress towards a pro-development global climate change deal.
For more information on the outcome at Cancun:
What the UK is doing
The UK is playing its part:
- We are pushing for movement towards a global deal that benefits poor countries.
- We have increased UKaid to help developing countries adapt to climate change, use clean technologies and tackle deforestation.
- We are contributing £1.5 billion in Fast Start finance over three years (2010-2012), of which £300 million will be dedicated to helping rainforest nations safeguard their forests.
Find out more about our work on climate change
What is the Cancun Summit?
The UNFCCC COP16 summit in Cancun, Mexico aims to take forward progress on a new international treaty on climate change. Last year’s Copenhagen summit didn’t reach agreement on a full, legally binding deal, but delegates did agree on a Copenhagen Accord, which more than 120 countries have now associated themselves with. The Accord calls for:
- Action to hold the increase in global temperatures below 2C.
- Commitments to cut emissions by developed and developing countries.
- Finance from developed countries to help the least developing countries tackle and adapt to climate change - $30bn Fast Start between 2010 and 2012, $100bn a year by 2020.