Full emotion, zero emission: an electric roadster steals the show at the Durban climate talks.

Strength in Numbers: Solidarity and Cooperation

Negotiators also made operational the new Green Climate Fund, which will send US $100 billion per year to developing countries by 2020.

The Green Climate Fund is a part of the agreements reached at the Cancun conference to mobilize US $100 billion annually by 2020 for climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries, within whose borders lie many of the regions most vulnerable to the present and future impact of a changing climate. While the fund itself is not tasked with mobilizing all of this financing, it will be a key component of those efforts.

Signs that the fund will be formed as planned are also good news for those paying close attention to the United States' negotiating position at the two-week summit. The U.S. agreed to the formation of the fund at the Cancun summit last year, but its commitment to the fund was in question recently.

In Cancun, an official "Transition Committee" (TC) of 40 countries was created and met over the course of 2011 to create an implementing document and make the fund a reality. The last meeting of the "TC" was in Cape Town, South Africa, in mid-October. The U.S. dissented in the final hours and, along with Saudi Arabia, withheld its consent to implementing the final document.

Although negotiations up to this point have been only sporadically successful, the Durban Conference achieved a landmark breakthrough that will strengthen unity between developing countries, especially the BASIC countries – Brazil, South Africa, India and China.

Upholding the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities," these four countries were a key driving force in the establishment of the Green Climate Fund at the talks, and thus have helped in securing the provision of resources and technological support for poor and vulnerable countries.

In the spirit of solidarity and cooperation, representatives of the BASIC economies spoke in one voice and in the process dispelled rumors of internal discord. Each of the four countries managed to safeguard their own nations' interests at the conference while respecting those of their counterparts.

The open and flexible diplomacy displayed by the BASIC countries in Durban contributed to the tangible outcomes of the conference.

They found common ground with the European Union with regards to supporting the renewal of the Kyoto Protocol. This was in despite of Europe's own roadmap considered by some as overly burdensome on some of the world's major carbon emitters such as China and India.