You had me at "submerged hot hands"

Romm: Obama, China, global warming | Salon

But as I discussed in June, the conservatives in Congress seem stuck in 1985, unwilling or unable to acknowledge the now painfully obvious reality of global warming or the remarkable advances that have been made in clean technologies. They lined up as a solid bloc against a U.S. climate bill and will surely do so until the last lump of coal can be pried from their submerged hot hands.

Yet if Copenhagen ends in failure, the Kyoto Protocol itself may well fall apart. Why would European companies (and those elsewhere) pay for the right to emit greenhouse gases in, say, 2011, when they will have no binding restrictions on their emissions in 2013? And if there is no subsequent agreement, there can be no enforceable penalty for countries that miss their targets.
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During the transition period, Obama should appoint a high-level envoy -- paging Al Gore -- to engage in direct shuttle diplomacy with China and other key emitters. He should meet with Chinese leaders himself in the first half of 2009. His presidency -- and the fate of humanity -- depend on it.