Why the UN can never stop climate change | David G Victor | Environment | guardian.co.uk

On Sunday in Thailand diplomats opened another round of formal United Nations talks on global warming. For more than 20 years, the UN has been working on this problem, with little progress. Expectations have never been lower.
... Stopping climate change is one of the hardest challenges the international community has undertaken. The main cause of climate change, emissions of carbon dioxide, is intrinsic to the burning of fossil fuels that power the world economy. Even in the best of circumstances, getting off carbon will take decades and trillions of dollars. The world economic crisis makes that even harder as few societies choose to spend money on distant problems when they face more immediate challenges such as unemployment and poverty.