The Kyoto Protocol recognised that developing countries should not have to hinder their own economic development by cutting emissions. However, the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ is at the very heart of the developmental divide in climate-change negotiations that saw industrialised and industrialising nations so vehemently pitted against one another in Copenhagen.

Now, industrial nations are proposing to postpone reaching an agreement until 2016, which would not to come into effect in 2020. But time is running out on climate change and a comprehensive agreement needs to be delivered in Durban, not least because the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends next year. We cannot risk another Copenhagen. The establishment in Cancún of a Green Climate Fund to support climate adaptation for developing nations was rightly welcomed as going some way to bridging the developmental divide. But that fund still remains empty, and Durban will have to address how the world should finance investments in tackling climate change.

Negotiators could do well to take a leaf out of the global postal sector’s book. The postal industry is demonstrating not only the good long-term business sense in investing in cutting emissions, but also how concerted effort across a global industry has been successful in bridging the perceived developmental divide. International Post Corporation’s (IPC) 2011 Postal Sector Sustainability Report – to be published at an international roundtable in Durban on 8 December – sets out the compelling business case for emissions reduction. In just two years, postal operators in IPC’s Environmental Measurement and Monitoring System (EMMS) have cut US$400-millions in costs through carbon-reduction initiatives. In the same way, the nations of the Earth must look to the longer-term return on investment in supporting a global climate change agreement.

The fact that COP 17 is taking place in South Africa underscores the importance of the developing and developed world of engaging with one another. The postal sector believes strongly in the importance of bridging the developmental divide, and IPC is delighted to have welcomed this year the South African Post Office as a full member of its EMMS programme. Moreover IPC has over the past years been working with postal operators in ten developing nations across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and is working in close collaboration with UN agencies the UPU and UNEP in ensuring that, across the postal sector, operators in developing and developed nations collaborate to effectively tackle a global problem.