The Durban climate summit with an agreement obtained right during the final steps of the conference. The agreement came when everything seemed destined to fall apart. In fact, the agreement signed in South Africa does not yet provide for new emissions reduction obligations for the period following the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol, set for 2012. The states have only undertaken to draw up a new binding agreement by 2015 , which will have to enter into force in 2020, possibly involving the largest number of countries, starting with the main polluters. Until then, indeed, until 2017, the Kyoto commitments will be extended, but only for those who want to ratify them (at the moment only the European Union, Switzerland, Norway, Australia and New Zealand have joined).
The associations and the academic world have expressed great disappointment with the outcome of the work. An epochal turning point according to the European Union, a "timid agreement" with too long a timescale for environmental associations such as the WWF, an important step for others such as Legambiente. The agreement reached in Durban, South Africa, at the UN World Climate Conference divides. For the protagonists of the two weeks of negotiations, the success of having found an agreement on the road map after hours of blocked negotiations that led to fears of the failure of the summit remains. The agreement establishes the adoption by 2015 of a global climate-saving agreement that will enter into force from 2020 and also apply to the most polluting countries such as China and India which have always opposed a binding protocol. An agreement has also been found on Kyoto2: after 2012 the second part of the commitments made in Kyoto will be implemented, a constraint which, however, will only concern Europe and a few other industrialized countries.
