At the 17th Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa, Parties squandered the meagre gains of previous COPs. Discussion of a second Kyoto Protocol commitment period was pushed to COP18 in 2012, yet Parties agreed to launch ‘Durban Platform’ negotiations toward a new treaty in 2015. By contrast, even without legal certainty over a second commitment period, Parties agreed to expand the Clean Development Mechanism. There was a strong focus on expanding market mechanisms. Other disappointments exist, such as adherence to the fallacy that forest carbon fluxes can be quantified and monitored with the accuracy needed for forest carbon accounting.