The United Nations climate talks in Cancún last December ended with a ‘consensus without Bolivia’, as most nations endorsed a compromise text drawn up by the Mexican hosts calling for deep cuts in emissions. The South American country withheld consent on the grounds that the agreement is too ‘westernised’ and relies too heavily on offsetting. In reality, little progress has been made since the COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, but the latest COP did establish a Green Fund, to be worth $100 billion a year by 2020, that will help the poorest deal with the effects of climate change, though it may be left to the private sector to produce most of the funds. Again, the hopes for a legally-binding deal for the post-Kyoto world have been pushed back a year to the next UN climate conference in South Africa.

Indigenous and environmental groups have expressed outrage at the deal. The Indigenous Environment Network said: “As representatives of indigenous peoples and communities already suffering the immediate impacts of climate change, we express our outrage and disgust at the agreements that have emerged from the COP16 talks. As was exposed in the Wikileaks climate scandal, the Cancún Agreements are not the result of an informed and open consensus process, but the consequence of an ongoing US diplomatic offensive of backroom deals, arm-twisting and bribery.”