On 11 December 2011, representatives of 194 countries participating in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa approved a new pathway for the fight against climate change in the coming decade.

Greenpeace activists protest against the convention on 10 December. (Photo:Reuters)

All delegations agreed to negotiate a new legally binding agreement for greenhouse gas reduction for 2012. It is planned to be valid until 2020 and will be the main weapon in the fight against climate change.

Currently, the Kyoto Protocol only set targets for developed countries to reduce their collective greenhouse gases emissions. The Kyoto Protocol was planned to be valid until 2012, but the convention agreed to extend its validity to 2017. The convention also reached an agreement to establish Green Climate Fund to support poor countries in the fight against climate change.

The convention can be seen as successful because it is the first time big emitters agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gases emissions. "This is a great success of the European diplomacy. We have successfully called for the participation of big greenhouse gases emitters such as USA, India and China in a potentially global agreement", said Chris Huhne, Secretary of Energy and Climate Change of United Kingdom. Meanwhile, the US Climate Change Correspondent Todd Stern said that Washington is pleased with the outcome of the convention.

However, environmental activists criticized that the action plan was not enough to restrain global warming. They said that participants should have increased the amounts of greenhouse gas they committed to reduce, rather than spent so much time discussing the precise wording of the agreement.

(Article by Hoang Phuong, translated from baomoi.com)