During protests against the WTO (World Trade Organization) meetings in Cancún, Mexico in September 2003, Lee Kyung Hae, a South Korean farmer and La Via Campesina member, martyred himself by plunging a knife into his heart while standing atop the barricades at Kilometer Zero. Around his neck was a sign that read, "WTO Kills Farmers." At that time, activists around the world were rallying under the umbrella of the global justice...

The debate on the climate negotiations, instead of discussing the nature of any policy shift, should define the national position and determine red lines for future negotiations. A new paradigm has emerged at Cancun. Instead of the multilaterally agreed emissions reduction targets of the Kyoto Protocol, there is now a shared target for all countries, where deep cuts in greenhouse gases are required according to science. Developed countries are to take...

The climate talks ended with uncertainty over the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol and no agreement on binding emission reductions. The difference between optimists and pessimists is that the optimists have more fun, joked Elias Freig-Delgado, a member of Mexico's Ministry of Finance Special CO{-2} Task Force and the working groups of the U.N. High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing. Mr. Delgado was speaking at the Forest Day meeting during...

Have the Cancun Agreements set Kyoto Protocol on a path to eventual death? No. Killing Kyoto would require a 2/3rd vote by the 180-plus member countries. There is too much guilt involved in that. But the Agreements have prepared the ground to render the Protocol hollow and meaningless - left to survive a vegetative, inconsequential life even as a new and unequal global regime takes ground. The Kyoto Protocol was...

Cutting carbon emissions: Scores of rich countries made pledges over the last year to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 under the Copenhagen accord but they were not incorporated in the official UN process. Cancun now formally puts those pledges into UN documentation, although they may increase or decrease in future. For the first time, developing countries also agreed to look at how they can cut emissions in the future...