Last issue, we left delegates at the Durban UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference struggling to make meaningful progress toward addressing the world’s climate woes. Those talks wrapped up Sunday, days behind schedule and with some tough decisions delayed. Here's how a few major items played out in overtime.

Unbelievably, the bedraggled Kyoto Protocol—which has done little to stanch carbon emissions since taking effect in 2008—managed to stagger out with agreement on a “second commitment period,” according to Reuters.

The European Union had asked for a binding extension of Kyoto until 2015, according to the Guardian. Nonparticipants in the Protocol—the United States, China, and India—and nations unhappy with their participation in Kyoto, such as Canada, Russia, and Japan, had proposed beginning negotiations on a different sort of solution, but not until 2015.

In the end, delegates approved a second commitment to the protocol through 2012. Round Two of Kyoto is slated to run from 2013 to 2017, although legal details still need to be hammered out, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Canada announced that it would withdraw from its first-round participation in the Protocol, effectively relieving it from having to purchase carbon credits for missed emission targets and highlighting the agreement’s overall ineffectiveness.

While Kyoto will see another round, Kyoto critics will also get their way…eventually. The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action will attempt to forge something like a new Kyoto Protocol, but one that will somehow bind all Framework Convention parties.

This work is set to begin immediately and be completed by 2015, with implementation delayed until 2020. Perhaps that's a realistic time for reaching consensus, but by then the point may be moot, seeing as some climate experts believe we’re already stuck on the path to dangerous and irreversible climate change. The Durban Platform does seem to recognize that some nations just don't seem to be motivated by the present existential crisis, and sets goals for closing the greenhouse gas emission mitigation “ambition gap.”

On a somewhat more practical note, small progress was made on structuring the Green Climate Fund, a pot of money that would provide about $1 billion a year to help developing nations mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

While delegates were able to agree that a UN body would manage the fund, most other important details—including where the money would come from and how climate mitigation and adaptation activities will be overseen—are yet to be established, according to Reuters.

The failure to reach a conclusion—and resulting delay in access to funds—frustrated many, including ActionAid's International Climate Justice Coordinator Harjeet Singh, who called the fund “an empty shell.”

When the official reports and agreements from Durban are finally published, they’ll be available on the COP 17 Web page.