I must admit, I have mixed emotions about what just happened at the Copenhagen conference. See, on the one hand, I was reasonably cynical about the prospects of success in the first part of this piece, so when the conference suddenly looked like it might produce a real, tangible result in the week before it kicked off I became worried that my cynicism would prove to be unfounded and I would be left looking awfully ill-informed about the shape of international environmental politics. But then, on the other hand, I do feel kinda bad about the fact we just steeped a shade closer to the environmental apocalypse. So, you know, I'm torn.

But I must admit, the conference did deliver a fair amount of intrigue and excitement, even if the final agreement has roughly as much content as your average McDonald’s placemat. There were walk-outs by the developing nations (the oft-cited, much maligned G77), personal accusations launched against Kevin Rudd’s integrity (Yay! Recognition! We’ve made it in the world!), sometimes violent protests (always with the anarchists) and the death of Brittany Murphy.  That last one may not be strictly related, but I like to think Brittany couldn’t  stand to live in a world that had so little respect for the perils of climate change. That or she’d taken enough narcotics to down a baby rhino. Probably the latter, really.

But I digress.

So, after two weeks of frou frou and palaver, everyone managed to walk away from the conference with a handy little largely ambiguous accord to take home and show the kids. This was, of course, not the fully fledged treaty that most people hoped to see at the end of the fortnight, but really it was the only outcome that anyone could properly expect. Once again, the split between developed and developing nations dominated the talks, leaving many to ponder whether the developing nations actually cared at all. A particularly pernicious accusation considering that in most cases the developing nations actually wanted stronger across the board cuts in emissions, just with a much higher share of those cuts to be borne by the countries that have produced over 80% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, this comes with its own double-backed logic, because in their ideal world the developing nations get to keep emitting without respite while the developed nations get punished retrospectively for sins committed during a more scientifically haphazard time. It is, as they say in the classics, a political shitstorm... Although, I’m not sure which classic. I think it was in Pride and Prejudice somewhere. Toward the back.

But with a weak outcome in Copenhagen, we now face our own domestic challenges on the issue, with Tony Abbott claiming that the collapse of the treaty vindicated his rejection of the ETS, thereby accepting stasis in the face of large-scale disaster, not so much due to a question over the chicken and the egg, but rather due to a general denial of the very existence of poultry. But the arguments waged by the denialists (and they are loud and strong in Australia; see this reasonably scathing assessment  in The Guardian to understand how rudimentary our debate seems in an international context) is based upon some grand economic furphy that making the cuts required to combat climate change will turn us into the Fremantle Dockers of the world economy. I mean, doesn't anybody get it? If you master renewable energy, or if you master a way of storing and off-loading carbon effectively, you pretty much win at the world. Like everybody else can pack up their bat and ball, because you just picked up the ability to rewrite the rules. If you're looking for antecedents, well, the US seemed to do pretty well out of that whole automobile malarkey. Current state of industrial collapse notwithstanding. The point is, this shouldn’t be viewed as some economy destroying horror, but rather an opportunity to reshape the foundations of an entire economic system. Which could seem like  a bit of an ask, but consider what the global economy looked like 20 years ago before the arrival of the Internet. Hmm. Makes you think, don’t it?

Nonetheless, the Copenhagen affair of itself shouldn’t be written off entirely. The mere existence of a unanimously acknowledged accord - barring the post-conference theatrics at the UN, where Tuvalu, Sudan, Cuba and a few other bastions of international co-operation managed to block the final passage of the agreement - isn’t absolutely nothing, even if it may feel like it. Sure there’s no binding targets, sure there’s no agreement on what level of atmospheric carbon concentration the world should aim for, sure there’s no processes for the way in which rich and poor nations should help each other out, sure there’s no... OK, so it’s not much. But it’s a start.

Over the next couple of years domestic political pressure will build, both here and elsewhere, and bit by incremental bit different countries will begin to concede on certain areas. It also might help if the Maldives sank without a trace, but you really do hope that we can sort our shit out before that happens. President Nasheed seems like such a nice guy, and he delivered one of the performances of the conference too. The point is that this is an ongoing process hoping to achieve the biggest feat of international cooperation since the formation of the United Nations. While it could be a tough road, and progress might be more incremental than general scientific consensus would suggest is wise, these are partially hopeful beginnings that perhaps mean we don’t have to start looting and rioting quite yet.

...Yet.

Kent Brockman: If 30 degree winters are the *snicker* price of global warming... you'll forgive this news reporter if he keeps his old Pontiac!