The EU should also continue to press for a robust and legally binding global agreement that involves all countries in real climate action. This requires integrating the Copenhagen Accord into the UN negotiations and addressing the weaknesses in the Kyoto Protocol.

Connie Hedegaard, Commissioner for Climate Action, said: ‘Climate change can be controlled only if all major emitters take action. Obviously nobody would stronger than myself hope that we could get everything done in Mexico, but the signals coming out of various capitals of big emitters unfortunately do not make that likely.’

Hedegaard admitted that in Copenhagen, the world had a ‘unique chance’ and did not use it. 

The Copenhagen Accord is a step towards the EU’s goal of a legally binding global climate agreement, which should take effect in 2013 at the end of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period. The Accord endorses the EU’s core objective of keeping global warming below 2ºC above the pre-industrial temperature in order to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

To date, industrialised and developing countries representing more than 80% of global greenhouse gases emissions have inscribed their emission targets or actions in the Accord.