It’s hard to find a suitable historical precedent for what just happened at Copenhagen. There have been abject failures of leadership at a national level, and huge regional mistakes like the Treaty of Versaille, but I can’t think of any case as comprehensive as this. The leadership of the world has met in the face of a very obvious collective threat, and betrayed every person on the planet.
We’ve known for years how this has to work. Emissions trading, binding caps, and investment by the developed countries in cleaner infrastructure in the the developing countries. It’s been thrashed out many many times.
I understand the politics, and all the pathetic excuses for why this country can’t do this until that country does that, but you can’t reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere by whining at them.
