The mountain labored, and brought forth a stone.

The Copenhagen Conference on Climate control gathered together leaders from
almost every country in the world, large, small, developed, and developing. They
spent days coming to agreement that global warming represented a mortal danger to
all living species, man foremost. The major polluters, The U.S., China, India and Brazil faced off against the undeveloped countries by demanding they share in the burdens which would arise from reducing industrial and agricultural production
of atmospheric carbon. Those countries resisted, citing their urgent need for developement to feed their people, and demanded aid from the advanced economies, and exemption from any time limits
However, those were not the principal roadblocks to
real progress. The adamant refusal by China of any timeline and inspection regime,
as well as the uncertainty that the US Congress would even approve limits on carbon
dioxide production doomed the prospect for any meaningful agreement.

A final push by President Obama and the supreme leaders of India and Brazil finally led to an agreement that was an exercise in how to avoid hard choices.
The big four accepted the GOAL of limiting emmisions to an amount which would raise the temperature of the atmosphere by no more that 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees
Fahrenheit). That is enough to inundate many island countries such as Samoa, the Maldives and many others. It would also play havoc with the U.S. coastal areas.
I liken that to feeding someone just enough poison to allow him to remain alive
but not as a functioning being.

The slim hope that the awareness of the problem now occupies the attention of the world, and thus will lead to further progress toward solutions, is the most optimistic assessment that can be made of what took place in Copenhagen. A thin reed
to rely on by a world that is poisoning itself.