My apologies for being a lazy blogger these days. I had to get over a jet lag and total lack of sleep from two and a half weeks in Montreal, and I had some catching up with work to do. But the blog will continue! I changed the title to reflect this.

I have to thank Chris for reporting on the outcomes of the COP and COPMOP. While negotiators were going through their final struggles on Saturday morning, I was stranded at Charles de Gaulle airport for a few hours. In the past week, I’ve been able to let some of the results of the Conference sink in. What I think is one of the most peculiar things this week is the different reactions to the outcomes. The normal situation would be that negotiators, politicians, and policy-makers would be very proud of the results of the Conference, and environmental NGOs would criticize the outcomes because they would not go far enough. This time, the situation is almost reversed! The Dutch State Secretary Van Geel, for example, although recognizing the political importance of the decisions made in Montreal, emphasised that given the urgency of the problem, this was not enough. The media seem to have taken over this view, judging from almost all of the people I spoke to after coming home, who all said something like “nothing much happened there” or “I heard the meeting was a failure”. Not all politicians were pessimistic, however. Tony Blair, for example, sees it as a “vital next step”. But what is maybe most notable, is the almost univocal praise for the outcomes by NGOs such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and WWF WWF.

What to make of this? Should we hoist the flag for the Montreal decisions, or should we fear for our future? Going back to a couple of posts ago, I said that I felt positive vibes at the Montreal meeting. I am sticking to this opinion, for a couple of reasons:
- As called for in the Kyoto Protocol, Annex I countries agreed to start talking. about follow-up commitments immediately through an ad hoc working group, and to ensure a new regime is in place before the end of the Kyoto commitment period.
- For the first time, developing countries have shown their willingness in the FCCC process to start talking about future commitments for all countries (whatever form this may take), by putting Article 9 of the Kyoto Protocol on the agenda for next year. Furthermore developing countries showed initiative to combat deforestation, which has potential huge benefits for the environment;
- The US delegation got more and more isolated during these two weeks. In the end, they budged and reluctantly signed up to a dialogue on a future climate regime in the UNFCCC COP. More than this, however, the US government is increasingly facing multiple pressures: other countries calling upon them to take on binding targets; public opinion slowly but surely shifting after Katrina; States and municipalities taking action; business complaining about its climate policy, to name but a few;
- The Marrakesh Accords were adopted without a negative sound. Even one of the potential difficult issues, how to adopt the compliance regime, was solved.
- And finally, a more personal victory: municipal leaders and mayors from all over the world adopted the targets that we put in the Youth Declaration. I can recall quite well where those targets came from J

These are the main points that justify my positive mood. Many more decisions deserve more detailed examination, however. Developments with regard to the CDM, for example, may be seen as positive (funding for the CDM Executive Board increased) but should also be followed closely (e.g. the next COPMOP will discuss whether carbon capture and storage should be included in the CDM; it is doubtful that these projects will contribute to sustainable development in developing countries).

In sum, there is sufficient reason to be content with the outcomes of COP11/COPMOP1. But, most certainly, we are not there yet. Only a few days after the Conference, we already get alarming messages about occurring climate impacts http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Science/story?id=1407585
We are nowhere near avoiding dangerous climate change impacts yet. But that does not mean that we should downplay progress made in the UNFCCC. No, it rather means that we should do our very best to ensure that the speed of this progress increases.