Durban: women save planet by huddling in the small hours.

Perhaps the best line of the entire Durban summit on climate change came towards the end from a youth statement by Anjali Appadurai who was selected to speak on behalf of her generation.  "You've been negotiating all my life", she said.

I would like to think her speech helped to give some energy to the exhausted negotiators at a point when coffee and fruit salad were no longer effective in keeping sleep away.

Friends of the Earth suggest the agreement on climate change emissions was 'feeble', and insufficient to avert catastrophic rises in average global temperatures of above two degrees celcius - the level generally considered merely extremely bad, rather than completely disastrous for our continued tenancy of the planet.

No doubt more could have been achieved, and no doubt more needs to be achieved, and more quickly. Nonetheless Durban feels to me like an important step in the right direction, if not some sort of breakthrough.

The details of the international agreement still need to be fleshed out by 2015, and won't be implemented until 2020, but agreeing to be part of such a binding process, and arguing about its details, is much better than no agreement at all.

Most fundamentally, it looks like the biggest barriers to international cooperation on carbon emissions, while still standing, no longer look unassailable. (I am reminded of a line from Predator: "If it bleeds, we can kill it.")

Most fundamentally, it looks like the biggest barriers to international cooperation on carbon emissions, while still standing, no longer look unassailable. (I am reminded of a line from Predator: "If it bleeds, we can kill it.") 

The 'big three', USA, China and India appear to have been convinced by some powerful negotiating by Connie Hedegaard of the EU. The wider debate between developing and developed countries still stands, but it seems to be less of a sticking point. There is something unfair about the developed world, who polluted their way to growth, now asking the developing world to remain relatively impoverished because of a problem that was not of their making. However, the two most powerful proponents of this argument, India and China, have enjoyed hight levels of economic growth for over a decade. They still want their economies to grow, but the need for sustained high levels of growth is less acute than it looked a decade ago and there is more scope for cooperation.

That said, there were some sharp words along the way:

The increased flexibility of China is noted by Mark Lynas in the FT, but there was also a tetchy moment where China's chief negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, lambasted the EU in a passionate speech, saying: "Who gives you the right to tell us what to do?"

There was an answer from one of the small island states that amounted to: because if you don't change your ways, we will not exist- and how can we accept that?

Whether it is Appadurai, Hedegaard, Natarajan, or Nkoana-Mashabane, the biggest stars of Durban were women. A coincidence? I don't think so.

India's environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan also asked a searching question: "How do I give a blank cheque signing away the livelihood rights of 1.2 billion members of our population?" However, it was because of Natarajan, who seems to have taken a decision that went beyond her country's instruction, that a deal was achieved.

Moreover, if it wasn't for the 'huddle' ordered by South African foreign minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane the negotiations would probably have collapsed.

It is easy to get lost in the details, important though they are, but for me three things stood out from watching the Durban negotiations from afar.

1) When Europe is united, it is very powerful on the international stage.

2) Don't give up.

3) It helps to have plenty of women around.

I know it's slightly outrageous to say that, but that's my overall impression. Whether it is Appadurai, Hedegaard, Natarajan, or Nkoana-Mashabane, the biggest stars of Durban were women. A coincidence? I don't think so.