T. Jayaraman Saving the integrity of the multilateral process in climate negotiations, with an outcome agreed to by both the global North and the South, is perhaps the most significant gain from Cancun. For several months now the oft-repeated litany was that little was expected of the climate negotiations at the 16th session of the Committee of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the associated Meeting of Parties of the Kyoto Protocol. In the event, the Cancun meet has thrown up some surprising lessons. It ended on a far more upbeat note than was anticipated even as late as midway through the two-week conference. The main achievement of the Cancun meet has been, as UNFCCC secretary-general Christiana Figueres emphasised, to restore some degree of faith in the multilateral process. A good deal of the credit for securing a qualified positive outcome at Cancun must go to the Mexican presidency of the Committee of Parties in the person of Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa Cantellano. The overall transparent conduct of the negotiations, even during the final ministerial phase, was a far cry from the rude, ham-handed, and strong-arm tactics of the Danish presidency at Copenhagen last year. Although the official and non-official contingents of the developing countries were understandably worried about a repeat of Copenhagen in the final days, this was not really on the cards. As Ms. Espinoza pointed out at one of the informal plenary sessions, the name plate of every country was available outside the rooms where the facilitators, drawn from among the Ministers of various countries, were holding consultations on various sections of the text of the final outcome. Jairam Ramesh for India and Xie Zhenhua, leader of the Chinese delegation, were undoubtedly correct in calling on the Mexican president of COP 16 to congratulate her on the outcome. It is certainly true that, given the current state of play in climate policies across many nations, such a multilateral outcome that has the approval of both the developed nations and the majority of developing nations falls short in many ways in terms of concrete, far-reaching solutions on the critical issues in global climate governance. Critical red lines that various countries and groups laid out even during the meeting at Cancun have been quietly modified. But the fact of agreement between the developed and developing nations is not insignificant