Nations Approve Cancun Climate Package

CANCUN, Mexico—The world's nations on Saturday agreed to a package of climate initiatives, including billions of dollars in funding for poor countries, although they failed to adopt a binding climate treaty amid a stalemate among the U.S., China, Japan and other nations.

The agreement calls on rich countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by amounts nations pledged a year ago, although the cuts aren't legally binding. Developing countries are to come up with plans to cut their emissions in a worldwide effort to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The agreement includes plans for a green fund and $100 billion a year that wealthier countries would provide by 2020 to help poor countries finance programs to cut emissions and cope with drought and other effects of global warming.

Felipe Calderon, the president of Mexico, which hosted the conference in Cancun, commended the delegates for forging a new path in the fight against climate change.

"Today, with this conference, we have the opportunity to begin building a new history in which economic growth, the conquest against poverty and living in harmony with the environment is within reach," he said at the conference.

Mr. Calderon added that while the agreement fell short of a treaty that would ensure steep cuts in emissions, the trust and upbeat mood among participants at the Cancun conference would help countries reach a more ambitious agreement.

A stalemate among the U.S., China, Japan, India and other countries has frozen talks on a global climate treaty and thrown into question the future of the existing Kyoto Protocol climate treaty. But diplomats said they hoped the Cancun plan could pave the way for a legally binding climate treaty when governments reconvene at next year's U.N. climate summit in Durban, South Africa.

Japan has said that it wouldn't commit to a second phase of the Kyoto treaty unless the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitters, namely China, the U.S. and India, agreed to cut their emissions under a legally binding treaty. The first phase of the treaty ends in 2012.

The U.S., which signed but never ratified the Kyoto treaty, has long argued that it wouldn't agree to mandated emission cuts unless China and other fast-growing economies also agreed to limit emissions. But at climate negotiations a year ago in Copenhagen, both the U.S. and China made voluntary commitments to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

China has maintained that as a developing country, it doesn't have the resources—or responsibility—to aggressively cut emissions while growing its economy.

India initially had a similar position, although the country softened it this week, saying it would consider agreeing to mandated cuts at some point in the future.

The emissions reduction targets are aimed at a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, while leaving the door open for an alternative agreement based on promises the U.S., China and other countries made at a climate summit last year in Copenhagen.

The U.S. has suggested that it might agree to binding greenhouse-gas emissions cuts if they were part of a deal based on the Copenhagen Accord.

Bolivian climate envoy Pablo Solon criticized the Cancun package for not going far enough to ensure that rich countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions, for being too vague on where the $100 billion a year would come from, and for including too many market-based financing programs.