Copenhagen summit: Obama's verdict on climate change pact | Environment | The Guardian

Barack Obama returned to a snowbound Washington at the weekend clutching a deal that was cast as a step forward by his administration but decried as a waste of paper by critics on both sides of the climate change debate.

NGOs and scientists are largely shell shocked

Comments displaying disappointment are plentiful from NGOs and scientists in the early aftermath of the UN conference in Copenhagen.

“What we have after two years of negotiation is a half-baked text of unclear substance. With the possible exceptions of US legislation and the beginnings of financial flows, none of the political obstacles to effective climate action have been solved,” Kim Carstensen, Leader of global conservation organization WWF’s Global Climate Initiative, states in a press release.

Thomas Friedman talks COP15, Mother Nature, and Father Greed | Grist

Q. Sen. Kerry said that success in Copenhagen would help the Senate move cap-and-trade legislation this spring, and that failure in Copenhagen would kill it.

A. Honestly, I think success here might be just as likely to kill the prospects of legislation in the Senate as failure. The issue of climate change rubs so many Americans the wrong way. You have to start the conversation with the American people on energy, not climate. The conversation has to be about making American more innovative, more energy secure, more economically competitive, a world leader. If you start on climate you’re dead—you can’t move people on this issue, first of all because they don’t feel it in their lives. People don’t want to hear they’re going to die - they’re inspired by self interest and by hope.
...
So when the United States or the world community says, “We want you to limit your CO2 emissions,” China has to ask very seriously: “What are the implications of that for our growth and therefore our political stability? Will it cause a lot of unemployment?” So the stakes are very big.

Q. So China wants America to take our sweet time coming up with a national climate policy?

A. China is basically counting on the conservatives in the House and Senate to squelch this bill for American reasons so they don’t have to do it. They are both hiding behind each other basically. And then the conservatives in the Senate say, “Well, we would do it but then you’ve got to bring China on board.” So we’ve had this little play going on.

Thomas Friedman - Off to the Races - NYTimes.com

...as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil told this conference, this Earth Day framework only works “if countries take responsibility to meet their targets” and if the rich nations really help the poor ones buy clean power sources.

That was never going to happen at scale in the present global economic climate. The only way it might happen is if we had “a perfect storm” — a storm big enough to finally end the global warming debate but not so big that it ended the world.
...Even if the world never warms another degree, population is projected to rise from 6.7 billion to 9 billion between now and 2050, and more and more of those people will want to live like Americans. In this world, demand for clean power and energy efficient cars and buildings will go through the roof.