What happened? China accused the US of not committing itself to any meaningful measures to reduce emissions; the US accused China of not accepting any international commitment to reduce emissions. Both insisted that they couldn’t do anything if the other didn’t move. Europe explained that they couldn’t take any initiatives without the US and China. The only thing they all agreed, and happily, was on the urgent need to do nothing.
So all we have got is an ugly cockroach, called “The Copenhagen Agreement”, concocted by the “world leaders” before hurriedly leaving the conference by the back door. It is a completely vacuous document saying that, as everybody knows, temperatures should be stopped from rising more than 2°C. Not a word about limits on gas emissions, no mention of percentage of reductions, not even as a wish expressed for the remote future. Nothing. Nix. Zero content.
So, what hope is there? The only hope is in the 100,000 people who demonstrated in the streets of Copenhagen, coming from Denmark and elsewhere in Scandinavia, Germany, Europe and the whole world, demanding radical measures, denouncing the irresponsibility of the “responsible leaders”, claiming climate justice, and proposing to “change the system, not the climate”. And in the thousands who peacefully marched up to the doors of the conference, trying to open a dialogue with the “official” representatives, only to be me by teargas and police clubs, and to see their spokespeople – like Tadzo Müller – arrested for “incitement to violence”. And in the thousands who took part in the discussions of the alternative KlimaForum, which adopted a resolution denouncing the pseudo-solutions of the system (“carbon trade”, etc.). There is also hope in political leaders like the Bolivian president Evo Morales – among the very few exceptions – who showed solidarity with the Climate Justice movement, and denounced capitalism as the system responsible for disastrous global warming.
To conclude: many years ago, the poet and singer Joe Hill, of the International Workers of the World (IWW) in the USA, said, just before he was shot by the authorities on trumped up charges: “Don’t mourn, organize.” We must return to our countries, and organize people, in the fields, in the factories, in the schools, in the streets, to build a large international movement fighting against the system, to impose radical change, to save, not “the planet” – it is not in danger, but life on this planet from destruction.