ABSTRACT
The international momentum which was built up for global action on climate change in the run up to the Copenhagen Climate Summit of December 2009, has now largely dissipated. The Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at Cancun, Mexico, in December 2010, reached a consensus on a set of Cancun Agreements, but only after a significant dilution of the original mandate adopted at Bali in 2007. This is regrettable because the challenge posed by climate change has only become more urgent and compelling. The window of opportunity still open to avoid irreversible and possibly catastrophic consequences to our planet's fragile ecology has probably narrowed even further.
