Cancun Produces Meaningful Steps

This is a good time to reflect on the status of international negotiations to address the threat of global climate change. After the modest results of the talks in Copenhagen in December 2009, expectations were low for the follow-up negotiations in Cancun in December 2010. But a funny thing happened on the way to that much-anticipated failure: After two weeks of discussions in the Mexican resort, the world's governments achieved consensus on a set of substantive steps forward. Equally important, participants showed encouraging signs of learning to navigate through the unproductive squabbling between developed and developing countries that derailed the Copenhagen talks.