However depressing the Copenhagen summit has turned out to be, it’s not the end, it’s not even the beginning of the end. The atmospheric climate does not wait upon politicians or international agreements. It is a raw elemental force that will exert its power in climate turmoil of increased intensification and frequency without let-up unless and until its causes are mitigated and reversed. There are two possible outcomes. Either the destruction and pain that this remorseless process will eventually impose on human civilisation will in the end enforce global action on the necessary scale and magnitude to arrest it, or a high proportion of the 9bn human race by 2050 (which the eminent British climate scientist, James Lovelock, believes could be as high as 90%) will not survive because of the massive loss of croplands, the decimation of other species, poisoned air and water supplies, and the ravages of disease and war. The real issue now, as it has always been, is how far nations and their leaders have to suffer the latter before they will seriously embrace the radical transformation of human society that will deliver the former.

The deep repugnance of key world leaders at Copenhagen for any fundamental challenge to their own immediate power interests, whatever the long-term cost to the planet, was perhaps the defining characteristic of the summit. The ‘Danish’ text leaked on the second day showed that the US, UK and Denmark (as the host to the summit) wanted to end the Kyoto Protocol and its commitment to legally binding targets. The one main consensus of the conference – to limit the rise in average global temperatures to less than 2C above pre-industrial levels – is unaccompanied by any targets or mechanisms to deliver it, and even if the increase in emission cuts offered by all the big countries before the conference were actually implemented (which is far from certain since they are voluntary and discretionary), analysts estimate that global temperatures will rise by 3C which will be catastrophic in large regions of the world.
Action on emission cuts which is paid for by the rich countries will be monitored, but the rules for internation verification have been deferred because of Chinese hostility, will be strongly resisted because they are seen as unwarranted US interference in developing countries’ (and especially Chinese) sovereignty, and anyway have no sanctions for failure. And even the inadequate $30bn funding for developing countries’ adaptation (when they themselves claim that £250bn is necessary) is dependent on their assenting to an accord which is heavily geared to protecting the interests of the rich world.
Above all, nothing in the final text commits to delivering a legally binding deal within a year, by the time of the next COP in Mexico in December 2010. Even if it did, there can be no expectation after Copenhagen that it would be achieved. Only two things are likely to change this. One is natural catastrophes within the rich world, particularly in North America. The other is the capacity of the developing world to force a carbon-cutting agreement on the rich nations which would balance their economic interests much more equally. The first would be extremely unpleasant, and there is no sign yet of the second being realisable.

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