Montreal Climate Conference - Success or Failure?
At the last day of the Montreal climate conference, the 11th such summit since the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, all 180 nations unexpectedly agreed to sign up to further talks and to take far reaching action against climate change.
10th December 2005
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The 39 nations governed by Kyoto have agreed to extend it beyond 2012.
New binding target for 2012 and beyond to be agreed in 2008, which is sooner than previously expected.
As the Kyoto protocol comes into force, agreement was reached on how to operate and police the protocol, and punish those countries that do not fulfil their Kyoto target of a 12.5% cuts in CO2 emissions below their 1990 levels.
The USA, Australia and other non-Kyoto participants have agreed to hold future 'open and non-binding' talks on how to combat global warming.
What did the Montreal Summit achieve?
During the summit, the USA walked out of the talks in an attempt to block any further progress and to stop an agreement being reached. However, the Bush administration came under attack from former president Bill Clinton, who said the US was "flat wrong". Further attacks in the US press, backed by three-quarters of Americans, who after a record hurricane season demand urgent action on global warming, forced the US chief negotiator to make a humiliating climb down and sign up with the other nations to a historic agreement.
Download UN summit climate action plan (PDF)
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